Birthday of Fr. Philip Berrigan, SSJ (1923-2002)
October 6

Beginning adult life as an artillery officer in W.W.II, Fr. Philip Berrigan was ordained a priest in 1955 in the Josephite Order, with its emphasis on inner-city ministry. At the start of his nearly 40 years of peace demonstrations, he was the first Roman Catholic priest to participate in the early 1960s Freedom Rides to end segregation.

Among the most notable of Fr. Berrigan's war-resistance demonstrations were his burning of draft files as part of the Catonsville 9 and his obliterating of draft files with blood as part of the Baltimore 4. Fr. Berrigan denounced war as "a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself." He lived and worked as part of the Jonah House community, a model for the peaceful, sustainable community he envisioned as an alternative to the U. S. military-industrial complex and its production of weapons of mass destruction.

In 1970 Fr. Berrigan left the priesthood and married activist nun Elizabeth McAlister, cofounder of Jonah House, who joined him in the pursuit of social justice and a world without war. Six books of Fr. Berrigan's provide detailed information about his actitivites, and his autobiography, Fighting the Lamb's War, sets forth his guiding principles in working for a disarmed world.

On December 6, 2002, Fr. Berrigan – surrounded by family and community members – died of liver and kidney cancer. In his final statement, he continued to speak on behalf of disarmament:
“I die in a community including my family, my beloved wife Elizabeth, three great Dominican nuns - Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert, and Jackie Hudson (emeritus) jailed in Western Colorado - Susan Crane, friends local, national and even international. They have always been a life-line to me. 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. We have already exploded such weapons in Japan in 1945 and the equivalent of them in Iraq in 1991, in Yugoslavia in 1999, and in Afghanistan in 2001. We left a legacy for other people of deadly radioactive isotopes - a prime counterinsurgency measure. For example, the people of Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Pakistan will be battling cancer, mostly from depleted uranium, for decades. In addition, our nuclear adventurism over 57 years has saturated the planet with nuclear garbage from testing, from explosions in high altitudes (four of these), from 103 nuclear power plants, from nuclear weapons factories that can't be cleaned up - and so on. Because of myopic leadership, of greed for possessions, a public chained to corporate media, there has been virtually no response to these realities...”

Recalling these words and wondering what Berrigan would have concluded had not his illness cut the statement short, McAlister recalled what he had learned over the years:
"that it is right and good to question our God, to plead for justice for all that inhabit the earth;
"that it is urgent to feel this: injustice done to any is injustice done to all;
"that we must never weary of exposing and resisting such injustice;
"that what victories we see are smaller than the mustard seeds Jesus praised, and they need such tender nurture; and,
"that it is vital to celebrate each victory - especially the victory of sisterhood and brotherhood embodied in loving, nonviolent community.”

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