Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister examine items donated as part of their collection to DePaul University. Catholic New World / David V. Kamba

by Michael D. Wamble
Staff Writer

The most confining place many priests have found themselves is in the confessional booth.

For Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan, it has been the jail cell.

Whether targeting segregation, war or weapons of mass destruction, civil disobedience has been part of Berrigan’s repertoire to draw attention to issues that disturbed him.

In 1968, as a means of protest against the Vietnam War, Berrigan, along with his brother and former Josephite priest, Philip, and seven other activists, burned draft files in Catonsville, Md. The brothers Berrigan dodged the FBI for months.

Eventually, the Jesuit served 18 months in federal prison.

Twelve years later, the brothers returned to the spotlight in suburban Philadelphia armed with hammers and their own blood to attack a Mark 12-A nuclear missile.

As a result of the 1980 action, the Plowshares was born. The name comes from a passage in the Book of Isaiah in which the people “turn their swords into plowshares.”

On March 1, Berrigan, 79, joined his sister-in-law and fellow activist, Elizabeth McAlister, at DePaul University for the dedication of the Berrigan-McAlister Collection at the university.

The collection, which includes posters, photos, books and other items acquired along their four decades of political activism, will be on display at DePaul until the end of June.

Though the actual collection—47 boxes of material—could be described as memorabilia, Berrigan and McAlister are looking less interested in the past than they are optimistic over the next generation of Catholic catalysts.

Nearing 80, Berrigan has maintained his sense of humor.

When asked if he viewed himself as an elder statesman in the peace movement, he replied, smiling, “I feel like a dinosaur.”

But what legacy do living relics leave behind who are fundamentally against the idea of “empire building” beyond university collections?

The message and spirit of their friend Dorothy Day lives, they said, through the ministry of the Catholic Worker Movement Day co-founded nearly seven decades ago.

In 1973, McAlister and husband Philip co-founded Jonah House in a predominantly black neighborhood in Baltimore, as a member of a network of war resistance communities.

Both DePaul and Loyola students have called Jonah House home during spring break service trips over Holy Week.

Said McAlister, “I am seeing something in young people that I think is new.

“They understand more about militarism and what it means than groups that I’ve met in the past.”



His seeds take root

As phones rang, computers beeped, and boarders awoke in an adjacent bedroom, the curly spun brown-haired Kathy Kelly stood in her copper sports jacket, frayed at the elbows, fully at peace.

Kelly stood smiling.

As McAlister has stated, “I don’t believe there is a better way to live than this—a life of non-violent civil resistance.”

Kelly’s modest spot on the North Side is ground zero for Voices in the Wilderness, a nonviolence organization dedicated to raising the awareness of U.S. citizens and people around the world to the consequences of U.S. government sanctions against Iraq.

Voices also helps to provide families with food and doctors with needed medical supplies

Among the gifts Kelly has received during her 13 illegal visits to Iraq is a 35-pound metal fragment from the nose of a Tomahawk missile that plummeted through the roof of a family near Baghdad.

“Why?” Kelly said a host family asked of her in Arabic, during a visit.

Since the 1996 holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Voices has prayed and protested, demonstrated and pushed legislators to end sanctions they believe have been as deadly to the Iraqi people as were the missiles.

The visits place Kelly at risk of a 12-year prison sentence and a fine of $1 million.

But for Kelly, who has watched children find their only source of water from an Iraqi sewage ditch, the sanctions are matters of life and death, in which she is moved by faith into action.

Kelly again has found herself nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. One can only be nominated for the honor by members of select committees, university professors of law, political science, history and philosophy, government officials or past recipients.

Kelly doesn’t know what group or individual nominated her, but appreciates the publicity it brings to her cause to buck U.S. restrictions and improve the lives of families in Iraq.

“The Catholic social teaching of a seamless garment as a consistent ethic of life is so correct,” said Kelly, praising this perspective most notably articulated by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. “You can’t overcome harming and killing by harming and killing.”

The fear of being attacked, either physically or verbally, said Kelly, can cause otherwise peaceful people to remain silent when it comes to speaking out against abortion, capital punishment, or other issues of life and death.

“Too often we allow ourselves to be ruled by fear. At the heart of the Gospel of Mark is the decision by the Apostles not to be ruled by fear and to catch Christ’s courage for change,” she said.

Change might also mean altering what is and isn’t considered to be “Catholic.”

In a recent interview the actor Martin Sheen confessed that when he returned to the Catholic Church, he returned to the church of Daniel and Philip Berrigan.

Is this the same Catholic Church of Mother Angelica?

“Sure,” said Berrigan, laughing. “It is and it isn’t.

“We share common sacraments and we share a common tradition. We’ve just come to different conclusions.”

The conclusion Berrigan and McAlister came to continues to inspire Kelly and members of Voices.

“Daniel Berrigan is a personal hero of mine,” said Voices member Laurie Hasbrook, excited to learn that his papers will be kept at DePaul.

“His work, along with that of Kathy, are examples of people who really live their convictions and really live their faith.”



For more information on the Berrigan-McAlister Collection at DePaul University’s Richardson Library contact archivist Kathyrn DeGraff at [email protected]

For more information on Voices in the Wilderness call (773) 784-8065 or log on to http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/sanctions.html