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“Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even.”
— Daniel Berrigan
“Daniel Berrigan was born in Virginia, Minnesota, a Midwestern working class town. His father, Thomas Berrigan, was a second-generation Irish-Catholic and proud union man. Tom left the Catholic Church, but Berrigan remained attracted to the Church throughout his youth. He joined the Jesuits directly out of high school in 1939 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1952….
“Berrigan, his brother Philip, and the famed 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 1968, he was interviewed in the anti-Vietnam War documentary film In the Year of the Pig, and later that year became involved in radical violent protest. He manufactured home-made napalm and, with eight other Catholic protesters, used it to destroy 378 draft files from the Catonsville, Maryland draft board. This group, later known as the Catonsville Nine, blamed American Christians and Jews for showing “[…] cowardice in the face of […]” the U.S. government, and for their racism “[…] and hostil[ity] to the poor.”….
“Berrigan was promptly arrested and sentenced to three years in prison, 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.” Soon thereafter, the FBI apprehended him, sent him to prison, and released him in 1972….
“Berrigan later spent time in France meeting with Thich Nhat Hanh, the exiled Buddhist monk peace activist from Vietnam….
“On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Philip, and six others (the “Plowshares Eight”) began the Plowshares Movement. They illegally 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. On April 10, 1990, after ten years of appeals, Barrigan’s group was re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. 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.”
[Excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Berrigan]
Essay by Mike Palecek
7/6/07
I owe my life to Dan Berrigan.
For good or for bad.
I think for good.
I drove from a smallish, conservative town in northeast Nebraska in January 1979 to begin seminary at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In February or March, Berrigan was speaking at Macalaster College, up Summit Avenue a few blocks at a Vietnam Symposium, whatever that means, along with Eugene McCarthy and a journalist named Gloria Emerson.
Anyway, I went, and I heard, and I walked up to him afterward to introduce myself and ask a stupid question.
A couple of us ended up driving Dan around town that night, to a church to hear John Trudell speak about the FBI burning his family in their home, then over to a TV station where Daniel Schorr was hosting a discussion between Berrigan and some guy from the Kennedy administration. I think it was Ted Sorenson.
All’s I know is they let me into this one room and pointed at a table full of food. I could graze as long as we were there. Have at it church boy.
Berrigan also came over to the seminary and spoke to us, about Vietnam, prison, the United States, the Catholic Church.
I was enthralled. I had never heard this stuff before, and likely would not have ever heard it in my seminary instruction.
Well, on a home visit I asked the parish priest who had hooked me up with the seminary, Fr. Walter Nabity.
I asked him about Berrigan and protesting and nuclear weapons and war and all that.
Fr. Nabity told me to forget about the protests, stick to my studies, stay away from the likes of Berrigan.
Well, I was confused.
I told Berrigan what Nabity had said. Dan wrote back to me. [Below]
Over Easter vacation, on Berrigan’s invitation, two of us took a train to Washington, D.C. for a Holy Week retreat and protest. We stayed at the Church of St. Stephen in northwest D.C.
There were lots of “famous” folks from the peace movement there that week, that I only found out were famous, within the peace movement, over the following years: Richard McSorley, Sr. Elizabeth Montgomery, Art Laffin, Elizabeth McAlister, Fr. Carl Kabat.
And of course, Phil Berrigan. I remember going up to Phil and asking him a stupid question. He was wearing this army coat. He took me to the middle of the church and sat with me. He listened to my questions.
“What’s a nuke?”
And we talked about the Catholic Church, celibacy, marriage, prison, the United States, the military, Thou Shall Not Kill. Lots of stuff. And he took the time to talk to me.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, unless I eat way too many Ho-Ho’s … again.
It was pretty cool. We planned these protests at the White House — Jimmy Carter’s administration — and the Pentagon, and some people went to the Department of Energy, too, I think.
We boarded the bus in small groups so that it would not appear to be a big group, I guess.
We went through the White House visitor tour line in those small groups and inside we looked at tables and tablecloths and silverware, and I tried to not look like someone who needed to be apprehended and sent back to Nebraska — or even worse.
The tour exited out onto a porch, a portico? And then those who were doing the protest took out banners from their purses or coats and held them out.
Fr. Carl Kabat poured blood on the pillars and was put into a headlock and hauled away. I got a good picture of that.
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