“A major part of Berrigan’s legacy is the Plowshares disarmament movement, which takes its name from the second chapter of the biblical book of Isaiah: ‘They shall beat their swords into plowshares. . . . Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’ Since Berrigan helped to found Plowshares in 1980, the movement has become international, spreading to the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Australia.” — Rachel J. Elliott
Today is the birthday of Philip Berrigan. From the Wikipedia entry (albeit edited and sans notes):
Philip Francis Berrigan (October 5, 1923 – December 6, 2002) was an American peace activist and former Roman Catholic priest. He was nominated six times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Along with his brother Daniel Berrigan, he was for a time on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for acts of vandalism including destruction of government property.
Berrigan was born in Two Harbors, Minnesota, a Midwestern working class mining town. He had five brothers, including the Jesuit fellow-activist and poet, Daniel Berrigan. His mother, Frieda (née Fromhart), was of German descent and deeply religious. His father, Tom Berrigan, was a second-generation Irish-Catholic, trade union member, socialist and railway engineer. He graduated from high school in Syracuse, New York, and was then employed cleaning trains for the New York Central Railroad. He played with a semi-professional baseball team. In 1943, after a semester of schooling at St. Michael’s College, Toronto, Berrigan was drafted into combat duty in World War II. He served in the artillery during the Battle of the Bulge (1945) and later became a Second Lieutenant in the infantry. He was deeply affected by his exposure to the violence of war and the racism of boot camp in the Southern US.
Berrigan graduated with an English degree from the College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit university in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1950 he joined the Society of St. Joseph, better known as the Josephite Fathers, a religious society of priests and lay brothers dedicated to serving those of African descent, who were still dealing with the repercussions of slavery and daily segregation in the United States. After studying at the theological school of the Society, St. Joseph’s Seminary in Washington, D.C., he was ordained a priest in 1955. He went on to gain a degree in Secondary Education at Loyola University of the South (1957) and then a Master of Arts degree at Xavier University in 1960, during which time he began to teach.
In addition to his academic responsibilities, Berrigan became active in the Civil Rights movement. He marched for desegregation and participated in sit-ins and bus boycotts. His brother Daniel wrote of him:
‘From the beginning, he stood with the urban poor. He rejected the traditional, isolated stance of the Church in black communities. He was also incurably secular; he saw the Church as one resource, bringing to bear on the squalid facts of racism the light of the Gospel, the presence of inventive courage and hope.’
Berrigan was first imprisoned in 1962. During his many prison sentences he would often hold bible study class and offer legal educational support to other inmates. As a priest, his activism and arrests met with deep disapproval from the leadership of the Catholic Church and Berrigan was moved to Epiphany Apostolic College, the Josephite seminary college in Newburgh, New York, but he continued his protests. Working with Jim Forest, in 1964 he founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship in New York City. He was moved again to St. Peter Claver Parish in West Baltimore, Maryland, from where he started the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission, leading lobbies and demonstrations.
In the 1960s, after activity in civil rights, Berrigan and others began taking increasingly radical steps to bring attention to the anti-war movement. The group known as the ‘The Baltimore Four’ occupied the Selective Service Board in the Customs House, Baltimore, on Friday, October 27, 1967. ‘The Four’ were two Catholics: Berrigan and artist Tom Lewis, and two Protestants, writer David Eberhardt and the Rev. James L. Mengel, United States Air Force veteran and United Church of Christ pastor. [….] Performing a sacrificial, blood-pouring protest, using their own blood and that from poultry purchased from the Gay St. Market, they poured it over records. In the trial of The Baltimore Four, Mengel stated that U.S. military forces had killed and maimed, not only humans, but animals and vegetation. Mengel agreed to the action and donated blood, but decided not to actually pour blood; instead he distributed the paperback book Good News for Modern Man (a version of the New Testament) to draft board workers, newsmen, and police. Berrigan, in their written statement, noted: ‘This sacrificial and constructive act is meant to protest the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina.’ The trial of The Baltimore Four was postponed due to the assassination of Martin Luther King and the subsequent riots in Baltimore and other U.S. cities. Eberhardt and Lewis served jail time and Berrigan was sentenced to six years in federal prisons.
In 1968, six months after The Baltimore Four protest, after his release on bail, Berrigan decided to repeat the protest in a modified form. Local high school physics teacher, Dean Pappas, helped to concoct homemade napalm. Nine activists, including Berrigan’s Jesuit brother Daniel, later became known as the Catonsville Nine. They walked into the offices of the local draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, removed 600 draft records, doused them in napalm and burnt them in a lot outside of the building. The Catonsville Nine, who were all Catholics, issued a statement:
‘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.’
Berrigan was convicted of conspiracy and destruction of government property on November 8, 1968 but was bailed for 16 months while the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court rejected the appeal and Berrigan and three others went into hiding. Twelve days later Berrigan was arrested by the FBI and jailed in Lewisburg. All nine were sentenced to three years in prison.
Berrigan attracted the notice of federal authorities again when he and six other anti-war activists were caught trading letters alluding to kidnapping Henry Kissinger and bombing steam tunnels. They were charged with 23 counts of conspiracy including plans for kidnap and blowing up heating tunnels in Washington. Although the government spent $2 million on the Harrisburg Seven trial in 1972, they did not win a conviction. This was one of the first reversals suffered by the U.S. government in such cases, another being The Camden 28 in 1973.
Other non-violent actions against the Vietnam War, the government and the military were organized by a group that referred to themselves as the Catholic Left. Phil Berrigan either helped to plan or inspired these actions, along with many other organizers, such as Jerry Elmer. The singular characteristic of these actions was that each was stringently non-violent. Also, the action would be done by a small group of people willing to take responsibility whether or not it meant facing jail time. The planning for the actions was always a series of mini-retreats in which those who finally acted worked to further their political and personal commitment to non-violence. [….]
Books by Philip Berrigan:
- No More Strangers. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
- A Punishment for Peace. New York: Macmillan, 1969.
- Prison Journals of a Priest Revolutionary. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.
- Widen the Prison Gates: Writing from Jails, April 1970-December 1972. New York: Touchstone, 1973.
- with Fred A. Wilcox. Fighting the Lamb’s War: Skirmishes with the American Empire. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1996.
- and Elizabeth McAlister. The Time’s Discipline: The Beatitudes and Nuclear Resistance. Baltimore, MD: Fortkamp Publishing 1989 (also available as a Catholic Worker Reprint, by Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010).
Further Reading:
- Bedau, Hugo A., ed. Civil Disobedience: Theory and Practice. New York: Pegasus, 1969.
- Berrigan, Daniel. The Steadfastness of the Saints: A Journey of Peace and War in Central and North America. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985.
- Brownlee, Kimberley. Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Dombrowski, Daniel. Christian Pacifism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
- Douglass, James W. The Nonviolent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace. New York: Macmillan, 1968.
- Elliot, Rachel J. “Acts
of Faith: Philip Berrigan on the Necessity of Nonviolent Resistance,” The Sun (July 2003): 4- 8.
- Elmer, Jerry. Felon for Peace: The Memoir of a Vietnam-Era Draft Resister. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005.
- Gray, Francine du Plessix. Divine Disobedience: Profiles in Catholic Radicalism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.
- Nepstad, Sharon Erickson. Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
- O’Rourke, William. The Harrisburg 7 and the New Catholic Left. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012 ed. (1972).
- Peters, Shawn Francis. The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistance in the Vietnam Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Piehl, Mel. Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker Movement and the Origins of Catholic Radicalism in America. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1982.
- Polner, Murray and Jim O’Grady. Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan. New York: Basic Books, 1997.
- Wittner, Lawrence. Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933-1983. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984.
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