Daniel Berrigan taught at Le Moyne College in the late 1950s and early ’60s. He is shown her speaking in 1981.
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Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest, poetand peace activist died on Saturday at 94, a Jesuitmagazine reported. The group were convicted of destroying government property and sentenced on 9 November 1968 to prison terms ranging from two to 3.5 years. He and his younger brother, the Rev. Phillip Berrigan, emerged as leaders of the radical anti-war movement in the 1960s. Berriganalso wrote a play, ‘The Trial of the Catonsville Nine’.
As a seminarian, Berrigan wrote poetry.
As part of his campaigning work, Fr Berrigan visited the north in 1980, along with his brother and fellow anti-war protester, Josephite priest Philip Berrigan. He joined the Jesuit order in 1939 and was ordained a priest in 1952.
Fr Berrigan in the 1960s became an intellectual star of the Roman Catholic “new left”, The New York Times reports.
“Berrigan undoubtedly stands among the most influential American Jesuits of the past century, joining the likes of John Courtney Murray and Avery Dulles”, the Rev. Luke Hansen wrote in the Jesuit magazine “America”, which first reported Berrigan’s death.
Berrigan credited Dorothy Day, founder of The Catholic Worker newspaper, with introducing him to the pacifist movement and influencing his thinking about war.
Their case was unsuccessfully appealed, which led the Berrigan brothers and three co-defendants went into hiding.
Also a poet, Father Berrigan received the Lamont Prize in 1957 for his poetry collection “Time Without Number”, and, in addition, was a professor at Fordham University. Four months later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Fr Berrigan at the Rhode Island home of theologian William Stringfellow.
Berrigan and his brother were sent to the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Daniel Berrigan was released in 1972 after serving about two years.
The Berrigan brothers continued to be active in the peace movement long after Catonsville.
“They returned having witnessed much horror and suffering and it was out of this experience came the Berrigan Brothers conviction of what Father Dan called “the sin of war” and their lifetime commitment to the abolition of war, nuclear weapons and all forms of violence”.
Both were arrested that year after entering a General Electric nuclear missile facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and damaging nuclear warhead nose cones.
Father Daniel’s brother Philip, died in 2002, aged 79.
Fr Berrigan moved into a Jesuit residence in Manhattan in 1975.
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“I owe him my heart, my life and vocation”, said Bill Wylie-Kellermann, pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit”, to America.
