Philip Berrigan

ALL BOLD TEXT NEEDS TO BE RE-WORDED AS IT IS ONLY A SOURCE Philip Berrigan (October 5, 1923 – December 6, 2002) was an internationally renowned American peace activist, Christian anarchist and former Roman Catholic priest. Along with his brother Daniel Berrigan, he was for a time on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for actions against war.

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Philip Berrigan was born in 1923, and after service in WWII, joined the Josephites, an order originally founded to minister to freed slaves. He was active in the civil rights movement and lectured extensively on race relations and poverty. Disturbed by U.S. Cold War policy in the early 60s, Berrigan began to speak out against militarism and the arms race. He was often at odds with the Church hierarchy over his peace activities, which ultimately became the focus of his life's work.

Berrigan was assigned to St. Peter Claver Church in Baltimore in 1965, and founded the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission. This group engaged in various protest activities before the two Baltimore area acts of resistance against the draft: the Customs House raid and the Catonsville Nine action.

Serving time in prison for these two actions, Berrigan secretly married Elizabeth McAlister, a nun. Excommunicated in 1973, the Berrigans founded Jonah House in West Baltimore, a community committed to nonviolent resistance to nuclear arms.

In 1980, Berrigan and other members of the community began the Plowshares movement, staging a protest at King of Prussia, PA. Since then, Plowshares members have continued to protest at weapons factories and nuclear facilities. Philip Berrigan died of cancer in December 2002. [1]

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On Friday, December 6, 2002 Philip Berrigan died at Jonah House, a community he co-founded in 1973, surrounded by family and friends. He died two months after being diagnosed with liver and kidney cancer, and one month after deciding to discontinue chemotherapy. For over 35 years Berrigan had been one of the nation's leading anti-war and anti-nuclear activists. He was the first U.S. Catholic priest to be jailed for political reasons and he was among the nation's first priests to participate in the Freedom Rides in the early 1960s. He helped found the Plowshares movement which took literally a line in the Book of Isaiah that calls for swords to be beaten into plowshares. He has spent over 10 years of his life in prison stemming from convictions for more than 100 acts of civil resistance to war. [2]

Early life

Philip Berrigan was born in Two Harbors, Minnesota, a Midwestern working–class town, the younger brother of Daniel Berrigan. Their father, Tom Berrigan, was second-generation Irish-Catholic and a proud union man.

In 1943, after a single semester of college, 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 deep South.

After the war, Berrigan entered a Josephite (Catholic) Seminary and became active in the American Civil Rights movement. He marched for desegregation and participated in sit-ins and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1955, but left the priesthood 18 years later, in 1973. He would marry late in life to Elizabeth McAllister, a former Catholic nun.

Protests against the War in Vietnam

Philip Berrigan, his brother Daniel Berrigan, and the famed theologian Thomas Merton founded an interfaith coalition against the Vietnam War, and wrote letters to major newspapers arguing for an end to the war.

The Baltimore Four

Soon, Philip Berrigan began taking more radical steps to bring attention to the anti-war movement. On October 17, 1967, the "Baltimore Four" (Berrigan, artist Tom Lewis; and poet, teacher and writer David Eberhardt and United Church of Christ missionary and pastor The Reverend James L. Mengel) poured blood (including Berrigan's) on Selective Service records in the Baltimore Customs House.

Mengel agreed to the action and donated blood, but decided not to actually pour blood; instead he distributed the paperback New Testament "Good News for Modern Man" to draft board workers and newsmen. As they waited for the police to arrive and arrest them, the group calmly explained to draft board employees the reasons for their actions.

Berrigan stated, "This sacrificial and constructive act is meant to protest the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina." He became the first priest in America to be arrested for an act of civil disobedience. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

The Catonsville Nine

In 1968, after his release on bail, Berrigan decided to continue protesting the Vietnam War.

A local high-school physics teacher helped to concoct homemade napalm, and on May 17, 1968, nine men and women entered the Selective Service Offices in Catonsville, Maryland. There, they removed 378 draft records, and burned them with the napalm in protest against the war. The nine were arrested and, in a highly publicized trial, sentenced to jail. Berrigan was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for this action.

These nine Catholic activists came to be known as the Catonsville Nine. They issued this 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."

This widely publicized act intensified protest against the draft, prompted debate across the nation, and stirred angry reaction on the part of many Americans. It also propelled the nine Catholic participants - especially the Berrigan brothers - into the national spotlight.

The Catonsville action reflected the nature of the antiwar movement in the late 1960's as well as the larger context of the social and political situation of that decade.

Jonah House

In 1973 Philip Berrigan, along with Elizabeth McAlister and others, formed a community they named Jonah House. From its inception, the community embraced all; religious and lay people, married and single people, children and adults, younger and older people. They believed that living and working in community was a way to model the nonviolent, sustainable world they were working to create.

Faith-based, the emphasis of Jonah House's formation was on the anti-war and social justice teachings of the Catholic church and was formed with the understanding that living in community is an essential learning tool for the principals of nonviolence and resistance. Jonah House members live simply, pray together, share duties, and attempt to expose the violence of militarism and consumerism.

The community lived in a row-house in west Baltimore for 23 years, and moved to St. Peter’s Cemetery in 1996, where it lives on 22 acres, caring for the grounds. One third of the cemetery has been cleared; the rest is woods overgrown with vines. The community maintains a vegetable garden and dozens of fruit trees, berry bushes, flowers and ornamentals.

The Plowshares Movement

On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Daniel, and six others (the "Plowshares Eight") began the Plowshares Movement when they entered the General Electric Nuclear Missile Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania where nose cones for the Mark 12A warheads were made.

They hammered on two nose cones, poured blood on documents and offered prayers for peace. They were arrested and initially charged with over ten different felony and misdemeanor counts. On April 10, 1990, after nearly ten years of trials and appeals, the Plowshares Eight were re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison.

Since this initial action, over seventy Plowshares actions have taken place around the world against weapons of war, several involving Berrigan himself. Berrigan's final Plowshares action was in December of 1999, when he and others banged on A-10 Warthog warplanes in an anti-war protest at the Middle River (Maryland) Air National Guard base. He was convicted of malicious destruction of property and sentenced to 30 months. He was released December 14, 2001. In his lifetime he had spent approximately 11 years in jails and prisons for civil disobedience.

Death

Philip Berrigan died of cancer at the age of 79 in Baltimore, Maryland. He is buried at Jonah House.

Shortly after his death, Philip Berrigan's family issued a statement that included words dictated by Phil to his wife Liz just before his passing, including these which summarize his lifes works and convictions:

I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself.

PRESS RELEASE

Baltimore, MD — Phil Berrigan died December 6, 2002 at about 9:30pm at Jonah House, a community he co-founded in 1973, surrounded by family and friends. He died two months after being diagnosed with liver and kidney cancer, and one month after deciding to discontinue chemotherapy. Approximately thirty close friends and fellow peace activists gathered for the ceremony of last rites on November 30, to celebrate his life and anoint him for the next part of his journey. Berrigan's brother and co-felon, Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan officiated.

During his nearly 40 years of resistance to war and violence, Berrigan focused on living and working in community as a way to model the nonviolent, sustainable world he was working to create. Jonah House members live simply, pray together, share duties, and attempt to expose the violence of militarism and consumerism. The community was born out of resistance to the Vietnam War, including high-profile draft card burning actions; later the focus became ongoing resistance to U.S. nuclear policy, including Plowshares actions that aim to enact Isaiah's biblical prophecy of a disarmed world. Because of these efforts Berrigan spent about 11 years in prison. He wrote, lectured, and taught extensively, publishing six books, including an autobiography, Fighting the Lamb's War.

In his last weeks, Berrigan was surrounded by his family, including his wife Elizabeth McAlister, with whom he founded Jonah House; his children Frida, 28, Jerry, 27, and Kate, 21; community members Susan Crane, Gary Ashbeck, and David Arthur; and extended family and community. Community members Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert, Dominican sisters, were unable to be physically present at Jonah House; they are currently in jail in Colorado awaiting trial for a disarmament action at a missile silo, the 79th international Plowshares action. One of Berrigan's last actions was to bless the upcoming marriage of Frida to Ian Marvy.

Berrigan wrote a final statement in the days before his death. His final comments included this: "I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself."

Mourners may make donations in Berrigan's name to Citizens for Peace in Space, Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons, Nukewatch, Voices in the Wilderness, the Nuclear Resister, or any Catholic Worker house.

Sources and Further Reading

• Berrigan, Philip, No More Strangers, New York, Macmillan Corporation, 1965, OCLC 899292
• Berrigan, Philip, A punishment for peace, New York, Macmillan, 1969, OCLC 19294
• Berrigan, Philip, Prison Journals of a Priest Revolutionary, New York, Holt; Rinehart and Winston, 1970, ISBN 0030845130 - ISBN 9780030845130
• Berrigan, Philip, Widen the Prison Gates, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1973, ISBN 0671216376 - ISBN 9780671216375 - ISBN 0671216384 - ISBN 9780671216382
• Berrigan, Philip; Wilcox, Fred, Fighting the Lamb's War, Maine, Common Courage Press, 1996, ISBN 1567511007 - ISBN 9781567511000 - ISBN 1567511015 - ISBN 9781567511017
• Berrigan, Philip; McAlister, Elizabeth, The Time's Discipline: The Eight Beatitudes and Nuclear Resistance, Marion, SD, Fortkamp Publishing Co., 1989, ISBN 9999230121
• Johnson, Becky, Philip Berrigan, Anti-War Activist, Dies at Home in Baltimore, MD, Common Dreams; Progressive Newswire, Retrieved February 14, 2007
• Polner, Murray; O'Grady, Jim , Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Lives & Times of Daniel & Philip Berrigan, New York, Basic Books; Westview Press, 1997; 1998, ISBN 0465026907
• Baggarly, Stephen; Wilcox, Fred; Prince of Peace Plowshares Group, Disciples & Dissidents : Prison Writings of the Prince of Peace Plowshares, Massachusetts, Haley's, 2001, ISBN 1884540422

External links

• Philip Berrigan, 1923-2002, Democracy Now!, Accessed February 14, 2007
• Jonah House, Community - Nonviolece - Resistance , Jonah House Website, Accessed February 14, 2007
• Documentary flim on the Catonsville Nine., Program for Media Artists, Accessed February 14, 2007
• Plowhshares, Plowhshares Movement Chronology, Accessed February 14, 2007

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