Daniel J. Berrigan, S.J. (born May 9, 1921), is an American Catholic priest, counterculture peace activist, and poet.
Dar Williams's song "I Had No Right" from her album The Green World is about Berrigan and his trial.
Paul Simon's song "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" refers to Berrigan as "the radical priest".
Charlie King's song, "The Hammer Has to Fall," from his album, "Vaguely Reminiscent" examines the motivations of the Plowshares 8 (which included Berrigan and his brother Philip) in damaging nuclear weapons with sledgehammers.
Lynne Sachs's documentary film Investigation of a Flame is about the Berrigan brothers and the Catonsville Nine.
Daniel Berrigan was interviewed about his life and activism for Kisseloff, Jeff (2006). Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s, an Oral History. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2416-6..
Daniel Berrigan appeared briefly in the 1986 Roland Joffé film The Mission, which starred Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons.
In 1994, Berrigan was one of several political activists featured on an advertisement for Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Proceeds from sales of a poster of the advertisement were donated to the Children's Defense Fund.
The character of Father Corrigan in the novel Let The Great World Spin (2009, by Colum McCann), was inspired by the life of Daniel Berrigan.
Danny Berrigan is recommended for the list of great minds to survive an impending nuclear attack in the 1988 film Miracle Mile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_...
Philip Francis Berrigan (October 5, 1923 – December 6, 2002) was an American peace activist and former Roman Catholic priest.
Berrigan was born in Two Harbors, Minnesota, a Midwestern working-class mining town. He had five brothers, including the Jesuit fellow-activist and poet, Daniel Berrigan. His mother, Frieda (née Fromhart), was of German descent and deeply religious. His father, Tom Berrigan, was a second-generation Irish-Catholic, trade union member, socialist and railway engineer.[1]
Philip Berrigan graduated from high school in Syracuse, New York, and was then employed cleaning trains for the New York Central Railroad. He played with a semi-professional baseball team. In 1943, after a semester of schooling at St. Michael's College, Toronto, 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. [1] He was deeply affected by his exposure to the violence of war and the racism of boot camp in the southern United States.
Berrigan graduated with an English degree from the College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit university in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1950, he joined the Society of St. Joseph, better known as the Josephite Fathers, a religious society of priests and lay brothers dedicated to serving those of African descent, who were still dealing with the repercussions of slavery and daily segregation in the United States. After studying at the theological school of the Society, St. Joseph's Seminary in Washington, D.C., he was ordained a priest in 1955. He went on to gain a degree in Secondary Education at Loyola University of the South (1957) and then a Master of Arts degree at Xavier University in 1960, during which time he began to teach.[1]
In addition to his academic responsibilities, Berrigan became active in the Civil Rights movement. He marched for desegregation and participated in sit-ins and bus boycotts. His brother Daniel wrote of him:
From the beginning, he stood with the urban poor. He rejected the traditional, isolated stance of the Church in black communities. He was also incurably secular; he saw the Church as one resource, bringing to bear on the squalid facts of racism the light of the Gospel, the presence of inventive courage and hope. [1]
Berrigan was first imprisoned in 1962/1963. During his many prison sentences he would often hold bible study class and offer legal educational support to other inmates. As a priest, his activism and arrests met with deep disapproval from the leadership of the Catholic Church and Berrigan was moved to Epiphany Apostolic College, the Josephite seminary college in Newburgh, New York, but he continued his protests. Working with Jim Forest, in 1964 he founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship in New York City. He was moved again to St. Peter Claver Parish in West Baltimore, Maryland, from where he started the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission, leading lobbies and demonstrations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_...
