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Philip Berrigan (October 5, 1923 – December 6, 2002) was an internationally renowned American peace activist, Christian anarchist and 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.
History
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 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.
Philip soon entered a Josephite seminary and became active in the Civil Rights movement. He marched for desegregation and participated in sit-ins and bus boycotts. He was ordained in 1955, but left the priesthood 18 years later, in 1973. He would marry late in life to Liz McAllister of Jonah House.
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 27, 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 paperback "Good News for Modern Man" to draft board workers, newsmen, and police. As they waited for the police to arrive and arrest them, the group passed out Bibles and 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 1969, after his release on bail, Berrigan decided to repeat the protest in a somewhat modified form. A local high-school physics teacher helped to concoct homemade napalm. Nine activists, who later became known as the Catonsville Nine, walked into the draft board of Catonsville, Maryland, and burned 378 draft files. The Catonsville Nine, who were all Catholic, issued a statement:- "We confront the 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."
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 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 Air National Guard base. He was convicted of malicious destruction of property and sentenced to 30 months. He was released December 14, 2001.
Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, has said, "Mr. Berrigan was one of the great Americans of our time. He believed war didn't solve anything. He went to prison again and again and again for his beliefs. I admired him for the sacrifices he made. He was an inspiration to a large number of people."
In one of his last public statements, Berrigan said,
The American people are, more and more, making their voices heard against Bush and his warrior clones. Bush and his minions slip out of control, determined to go to war, determined to go it alone, determined to endanger the Palestinians further, determined to control Iraqi oil, determined to ravage further a suffering people and their shattered society. The American people can stop Bush, can yank his feet closer to the fire, can banish the war makers from Washington D.C., can turn this society around and restore it to faith and sanity.
Death
Philip Berrigan died of cancer at the age of 79.
Further reading
Berrigan was the author of several books, including No More Strangers, Punishment for Peace (ISBN 0345224302), Prison Journals of a Priest Revolutionary (ISBN 0030845130), and Widen the Prison Gates (ISBN 0671216384). In 1996, he wrote his autobiography, Fighting the Lamb's War (ISBN 1567511015), and with his wife wrote The Times' Discipline.
Murray Polner and Jim O'Grady, "Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Lives & Times of Daniel & Philip Berrigan (Basic Books, 1997; Westvew Press, 1998) He also contributed to Disciples and Dissidents, published in 2000 by Haley's. Fred Wilcox edited the book.
See: Ploughshares Movement Chronology
See also
External links
American activists | American anarchists | American Christian socialists | American Roman Catholic priests | American World War II veterans | American anti-war activists | American memoirists | Nonviolence | American pacifists | Roman Catholic activists | Irish-Americans | People from Minnesota | Cancer deaths | 1923 births | 2002 deaths
"Philip Berrigan"