Well known peace activist against the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam,
who joined the Jesuit Order in 1939- was an excellent example of how the Jesuit Order's political involvement encompasses BOTH sides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Berrigan
Daniel Joseph Berrigan,
S.J. (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016), was an American
Jesuit priest,
anti-war activist and poet.
[1][2]
Like many others during the 1960s, Berrigan's
active protest against the
Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admiration, but it was his participation in the
Catonsville Nine that made him famous.
[3][4] It also landed him on the
FBI's "most wanted list", on the cover of
TIME magazine,
[5] and in prison.
[1]
His own particular form of militancy and radical spirituality in the
service of social and political justice was significant enough,
[6] at that time, to "shape the tactics of resistance to the Vietnam War" in the United States.
[1]
For the rest of his life, Berrigan remained one of the US's leading anti-war activists.
[7] In 1980, he founded the
Plowshares Movement, an anti-nuclear protest group, that put him back into the national spotlight.
[8] He was also an award-winning and prolific author of some 50 books, a teacher, and a university educator.
[1]
Early life
Berrigan was born in
Virginia, Minnesota, the son of Frieda Berrigan (née Fromhart), who was of German descent, and Thomas Berrigan, a second-generation
Irish Catholic and active trade union member.
[9] He was the fifth of six sons.
[1] His brother, fellow peace activist
Philip Berrigan, was the youngest.
[10]
At age 5, Berrigan's family moved to
Syracuse, New York.
[11] In 1946, Berrigan earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Andrew-on-Hudson, a Jesuit seminary in
Hyde Park, New York.
[12] In 1952 he received a master’s degree from
Woodstock College in
Baltimore, Maryland.
[1]
Berrigan was devoted to the Catholic Church throughout his youth.
He joined the Jesuits directly out of high school in 1939 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1952.
[1][13]
Career
Berrigan taught at
St. Peter's Preparatory School in
Jersey City from 1946 to 1949.
[14]
In 1954, Berrigan was assigned to teach theology at the Jesuit
Brooklyn Preparatory School. In 1957 he was appointed professor of New Testament studies at
Le Moyne College in
Syracuse, New York. The same year, he won the
Lamont Prize for his book of poems,
Time Without Number.
He developed a reputation as a religious radical, working actively
against poverty and on changing the relationship between priests and lay
people. While at Le Moyne, he founded its International House.
[15]
From 1966 to 1970, Berrigan was the assistant director of the
Cornell University
United Religious Work (CURW), the umbrella organization for all
religious groups on campus, including the Cornell Newman Club (later the
Cornell Catholic Community), eventually becoming the group's pastor.
[16]
According to
The New York Times, Berrigan at one time or another held faculty positions or ran programs at
Union Seminary,
Loyola University in New Orleans,
Columbia,
Cornell, and
Yale.
[1] However, his longest tenure was at
Fordham (a Jesuit university located in the Bronx), where he even served as their poet-in-residence, for a brief time.
[1][17]
Berrigan appears briefly in the 1986
Warner Bros. film
The Mission, playing a Jesuit priest. He also served as a consultant on the film.
[18][19]
Protests against the Vietnam War
| “ |
But
how shall we educate men to goodness, to a sense of one another, to a
love of the truth? And more urgently, how shall we do this in a bad
time?—Daniel Berrigan, S.J., on the cover of TIME Magazine (Jan. 25, 1971)[20] | | |
” |
Berrigan, his brother and
Josephite priest
Philip Berrigan, and
Trappist monk
Thomas Merton founded an interfaith coalition against the
Vietnam War,
and wrote letters to major newspapers arguing for an end to the war. In
1967, Berrigan and his brother were arrested for pouring blood on draft
records as part of the
Baltimore Four.
[21] Phillip was sentenced to six years in prison for defacing government property. This, and his belief that his support of
prisoners of war during the war was not acknowledged and appreciated, further radicalized Berrigan against the United States government.
[7]
Berrigan traveled to Hanoi with
Howard Zinn during the
Tet Offensive
in January 1968 to "receive" three American airmen, the first American
POWs released by the North Vietnamese since the U.S. bombing of that
nation had begun.
[22][23]
In 1968, he signed the
Writers and Editors War Tax Protest pledge, vowing to refuse to make tax payments in protest of the Vietnam War.
[24] In the same year, he was interviewed in the anti-Vietnam War documentary film
In the Year of the Pig, and later that year became involved in radical non-violent protest.
Catonsville Nine
Daniel Berrigan and his brother Philip, along with seven other Catholic protesters, used homemade
napalm to destroy 378 draft files in the parking lot of the
Catonsville, Maryland, draft board on May 17, 1968.
[25][26][27] This group came to be known as the
Catonsville Nine, who issued a statement after the incident:
We confront the Roman Catholic Church, other Christian bodies, and
the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face
of our country's crimes. We are convinced that the religious bureaucracy
in this country is racist, is an accomplice in this war, and is hostile
to the poor.[21]
Berrigan was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison,
[28]
but went into hiding with the help of fellow radicals prior to
imprisonment. While on the run, Berrigan was interviewed for Lee
Lockwood's documentary
The Holy Outlaw. The FBI apprehended him at the home of
William Stringfellow and sent him to prison. He was released in 1972.
[29]
In retrospect, the trial of the Catonsville Nine was significant
because it "altered resistance to the Vietnam War, moving activists from
street protests to repeated acts of civil disobedience, including the
burning of draft cards."
[4] As
The New York Times noted in its obituary: Berrigan's actions helped "shape the tactics of opposition to the Vietnam War."
[1]
Plowshares Movement
On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Philip, and six others (the "Plowshares Eight") began the
Plowshares Movement. They trespassed onto the
General Electric nuclear missile facility in
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and
poured blood onto documents and files. They were arrested and charged with over ten different felony and misdemeanor counts.
[30]
On April 10, 1990, after ten years of appeals, Berrigan's group was
re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of
time already served in prison.
[31] Their legal battle was re-created in
Emile de Antonio's 1982 film
In The King of Prussia, which starred
Martin Sheen and featured appearances by the Plowshares Eight as themselves.
[2]
Berrigan was still involved with the Plowshares Movement until his death.
[citation needed]
Other activism
Berrigan maintained his opposition to American intervention in Central America, through the
Gulf War in 1991, the
Kosovo War, the
U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the
2003 invasion of Iraq. He was also an anti-abortion activist
[32] and opponent of capital punishment, a contributing editor of
Sojourners, and a supporter of the
Occupy movement.
[33][34]
http://endrtimes.blogspot.com/2016/05/daniel-j-berrigan-defiant-priest-who.html
(excerpt)
WILLIAM E. SAURO / THE NEW YORK TIMES
By DANIEL LEWIS
APRIL 30, 2016
The Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and poet whose defiant
protests helped shape the tactics of opposition to the Vietnam War and
landed him in prison, died on Saturday in New York City. He was 94.
His death was confirmed by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at large at
America magazine, a national Catholic magazine published by Jesuits. Father Berrigan died at Murray-Weigel Hall, the Jesuit infirmary at
Fordham University in the Bronx.
The United States was tearing itself apart over civil rights and the war
in Southeast Asia when Father Berrigan emerged in the 1960s as an
intellectual star of the Roman Catholic “new left,” articulating a view
that racism and poverty, militarism and capitalist greed were
interconnected pieces of the same big problem: an unjust society.
It was an essentially
religious position,
based on a stringent reading of the Scriptures that some called pure
and others radical. But it would have explosive political consequences
as Father Berrigan; his brother
Philip,
a Josephite priest; and their allies took their case to the streets
with rising disregard for the law or their personal fortunes.
