Jesuit priest, peace activist Daniel Berrigan dies at 94

[marylander1940]

Bubble, Bubble toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

 

 

"Every nation-state tends towards the imperial—that is the point. Through banks, armies, secret police, propaganda, courts and jails, treaties, taxes, laws and orders, myths of civil obedience, assumptions of civic virtue at the top. Still it should be said of the political left, we expect something better. And correctly. We put more trust in those who show a measure of compassion, who denounce the hideous social arrangements that make war inevitable and human desire omnipresent; which fosters corporate selfishness, panders to appetites and disorder, waste the earth."

 

 

—Daniel Berrigan

poet, Jesuit priest

 

The Rev. Daniel Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest and peace activist who was imprisoned for burning draft files in a protest against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 94.

 

Berrigan died at Murray-Weigel Hall, a Jesuit health care community in New York City after a "long illness," according to Michael Benigno, a spokesman for the Jesuits USA Northeast Province.

 

"He died peacefully," Benigno said.

 

Berrigan and his younger brother, the Rev. Philip Berrigan, emerged as leaders of the radical anti-war movement in the 1960s.

 

The Berrigan brothers entered a draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, on May 17, 1968, with seven other activists and removed records of young men about to be shipped off to Vietnam. The group took the files outside and burned them in garbage cans.

 

The Catonsville Nine, as they came to be known, were convicted on federal charges accusing them of destroying U.S. property and interfering with the Selective Service Act of 1967. All were sentenced on Nov. 9, 1968 to prison terms ranging from two to 3.5 years.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jesuit-priest-peace-activist-daniel-berrigan-dies-94-011100790.html

[tyro]

If I remember correctly, he was a consultant on The Mission, one of my favorite movies. He will be missed.

T

[rvwnsd]

When the New York Times alert popped up on my phone yesterday I was surprised to see he was 94. It just goes to show you that activism against the war was not limited to the youngsters.

[marylander1940]