Philip Francis "Phil" Berrigan (October 5, 1923 – December 6, 2002) was an American peace activist and Catholic priest with the Josephites. He engaged in nonviolent, civil disobedience in the cause of peace and nuclear disarmament and was often arrested.
In 1973, he married a former nun, Elizabeth McAlister. Both were subsequently excommunicated by the Catholic Church before being reinstated. For 11 years of their 29-year marriage they were separated by one or both serving time in prison.
Berrigan was born in Two Harbors, Minnesota, a Midwestern, working-class 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.
Berrigan graduated from high school in Syracuse, New York, and then was employed as a cleaner for the New York Central Railroad. 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. He was deeply affected by racial segregation and racism while completing boot camp in the American South. After the end of his military service, Berrigran enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1950.
Josephites and early priesthood
In 1950, he joined the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, better known as the Josephites, a religious society of priests and lay brothers dedicated to serving African Americans (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 of Louisiana in 1960, during which time he began to teach at St. Augustine High.
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.
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 minor seminary 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.
Berrigan and others took increasingly radical steps to bring attention to the anti-war movement. The group, later known as the Baltimore Four, occupied the Selective Service Board in the Custom House, Baltimore, on October 27, 1967. "The Four" were Berrigan, artist Tom Lewis, writer David Eberhardt, and the Rev. James L. Mengel III. Mengel was a United States Air Force veteran and a United Church of Christ pastor. Performing a sacrificial, blood-pouring protest, they used their own blood and that from poultry and poured it over selective service (draft) records. During their trial, Mengel stated that U.S. military forces had killed and maimed not only humans, but also animals and vegetation. Mengel agreed to the action and donated blood, but decided not to actually pour blood. Instead he distributed the paperback book version of the New Testament to draft board workers, newsmen, and police. Berrigan, in a written statement, noted that his sacrificial and constructive act was meant to protest "the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina".
The trial of the four defendants was postponed due to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the subsequent riots in Baltimore and other U.S. cities. Eberhardt and Lewis served jail time, and Berrigan was sentenced to six years in federal prisons.
In 1968, six months after the Baltimore draft records protest, while out on bail, Berrigan decided to repeat the protest in a modified form. A high school physics teacher, Dean Pappas, helped to concoct homemade napalm. Nine activists, including Berrigan's Jesuit brother Daniel, later became known as the Catonsville Nine when they walked into the offices of the local draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, removed 600 draft records, doused them in napalm and burnt them in a lot outside of the building. The Catonsville Nine, who were all Catholics, issued a statement:
We confront the Roman 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.
Berrigan was convicted of conspiracy and destruction of government property on November 8, 1968, but was bailed for 16 months while the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court rejected the appeal, and Berrigan and three others went into hiding. For a time, Liz McAlister, the nun who would later become his wife, helped hide Berrigan in New Jersey. Twelve days later, Berrigan was arrested by the FBI and jailed in Lewisburg. All nine were sentenced to three years in prison.
Berrigan attracted the notice of federal authorities again when he and six other anti-war activists were caught trading letters alluding to kidnapping Henry Kissinger and bombing steam tunnels. They were charged with 23 counts of conspiracy including plans for kidnap and blowing up heating tunnels in Washington. The government spent $2 million on the 1972 Harrisburg Seven trial but did not win a conviction. This was one of the reversals suffered by the U.S. government in such cases, another being the Camden 28 in 1973.
Berrigan organized or inspired many additional operations. The D.C. Nine, in March 1969, consisted of mostly priests and nuns disrupting the Washington Dow Chemical offices by scattering their files. The group protested Dow's production of napalm for use in the Vietnam War. The D.C. Nine were later tried in Washington, D.C., but an appeal was won in their favor. Some jail time was served. Later in May 1969, the Chicago 15 Catholics protested napalm and burned 40,000 draft cards.
Berrigan helped the Milwaukee 14 in a protest against the Milwaukee Draft Boards on September 24, 1968. The Fourteen men burned 10,000 1-A draft files. After being arrested, they spent a month in prison, unable to raise bail set at $415,000. Father James Groppi came to their aid, co-chairing the Milwaukee 14 Defense Committee. Members were later placed on trial, and many did considerable jail time.