Saturday, April 30, 2016

Daniel Berrigan, R. I. P.

Activist priest and Vietnam war protester Daniel Berrigan dies at 94: Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and peace activist, passed away on Saturday, reports James Martin, SJ, editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine, America.  

I always thought of him when I heard Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard":  "When the radical priest came to get me released we was all on the cover of Newsweek."

3 comments:

Deb said...

You and me both with the "radical priest" line. I guess he was the only radical priest I'd ever heard of.

I also got him confused with Daniel Ellsburg whose name I remember as vaguely bring connected to the Pentagon Papers and other nefarious Nixon Administration goings-on.

Don Coffin said...

Extensive obit in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/nyregion/daniel-j-berrigan-defiant-priest-who-preached-pacifism-dies-at-94.html?_r=0

Berrigannn's autobiography is well worth reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Dwell-Peace-Autobiography-Daniel-Berrigan/dp/0062500570/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462113063&sr=1-3&keywords=daniel+berrigan

Deb--also his older brother Phil.

Ellsberg photocopied and leaked the Pentagon Papers. It was his psychiatrist's office that the "plumbers" broke into, trying to find something to discredit him. Ellsberg's memoir is a good one:
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Memoir-Vietnam-Pentagon-Papers/dp/0142003425/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462113004&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=daniel+ellsburg

Deb said...

Thanks, Don. I knew that somehow both Daniels were connected somehow to the Vietnam War and the Nixon Administration. I think that in my memories I conflated the two of them.