Daniel Berrigan – A Priest who Waged not War but Peace

by Tony Magliano · May 24, 2016

When I talked with him, the soft-spoken Father Berrigan, then in his late- 80s, told me he was still writing, giving retreats and getting arrested for anti-war civil disobedience.

Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan, an early critic of U.S. military intervention in Vietnam who for years challenged the country’s reliance on military might, died April 30 at 94. He is pictured in a 2002 photo in New York. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

The best way to remember those who have been killed in battle is to work for the day when others will no longer be sent to take their place.

Prayerfully reflecting on how to move away from war and war preparation should be central to every Memorial Day, the annual holiday in the United States on May 30 for remembering the people who died while serving in the country’s armed forces.

Why do presidents and congresses send young men and women to kill and be killed? Why do most Americans so easily accept their worn-out, immoral answers? And why can’t we finally learn how to wage peace, instead of war?

Some time ago, while reflecting on these very questions, I turned for insight to America’s preeminent Catholic anti-war veteran, the recently deceased Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan.

When I talked with him, the soft-spoken Father Berrigan, then in his late- 80s, told me he was still writing, giving retreats and getting arrested for anti-war civil disobedience.

Father Berrigan said as a young Jesuit he met and worked with two giant Catholic figures of the 20^th century – Dorothy Day and Trappist Father Thomas Merton. Their deep spiritually and uncompromising commitment to nonviolence had a lasting effect upon his life.

His late brother Philip also deeply influenced him. They were truly kindred spirits. After all, they were known as the “Berrigan Brothers”.

Father Berrigan said in the mid-1960s that Cardinal Francis Spellman, archbishop of New York, strongly supported US involvement in the Vietnam War. The cardinal said the Vietnam War was a just war. The Jesuit recalled: “We said, ‘No war is just’.”

He added: “I don’t know how we can open the Gospel and wage war.”

While Cardinal Spellman was flying to Vietnam aboard a US bomber, Father Berrigan told me, he and his brother were protesting in front of New York’s St Patrick’s Cathedral holding a banner that read, “Thou Shall Not Bomb”.

Mourners participate in a peace march May 6 prior to the funeral Mass of Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan at the Church of St. Francis Xavier in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Father Berrigan, a peace and social justice activist, died April 30 at age 94. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

As people passed by they handed out anti-war leaflets stained with their own blood. “It’s better to give blood than to take it,” he added.

One of Father Berrigan’s most symbolic acts of civil disobedience – which landed him in prison – was when he and eight other protesters used napalm to burn paper draft records in Catonsville, Maryland. He said they used napalm to highlight the fact that American warplanes were dropping napalm bombs on countless Vietnamese civilians. Father Berrigan explained that napalm is made out of kerosene and soap chips. The soap chips allow burning kerosene to adhere to human skin. He said: “It’s criminal to burn paper, but not criminal to burn children.”

“What do we make of the Sermon on the Mount while all this is going on,” questioned Father Berrigan. “Jesus lived by nonviolence, he commanded us to love our enemies.”

Father Berrigan not only fiercely opposed the violence of war, but consistently opposed all forms of violence. Having protested at abortion centres, he said: “A decent society should no more have an abortion clinic than the Pentagon.”

He contrasted the flag-flying militaristic “patriotism” that shapes much of Memorial Day to that of Gospel nonviolence with these words: “Are we Christians who happen to be American? Or are we Americans who happen to be Christian?” The very fate of the USA, not to mention the souls of its people, hinges on our answer. May the peacemaker Father Daniel Berrigan, rest in eternal peace with the God of peace.

And through his intercession, may all who proclaim to be disciples of the Prince of Peace, sincerely pray and sacrificially work to buildup the peaceable Kingdom of God on earth; as it is in heaven.