Birthday of Philip Berrigan | Naming the Days

Fr. Philip Berrigan (1923 – 2002) devoted his life to struggle resistance via energetic nonviolence. He and his brother, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., dedicated acts of civil disobedience which led to repeated imprisonment, eleven years in all for Philip.

Starting grownup life as an artillery officer in W.W.II, Fr. Philip Berrigan was ordained a priest in 1955 within the Josephite Order, which emphasised inner-city ministry. Initially of his almost 40 years of peace demonstrations, he was the primary Roman Catholic priest to take part within the early Nineteen Sixties Freedom Rides to finish segregation. Among the many most notable of his war-resistance demonstrations have been his burning of draft information as a part of the Catonsville 9 and his obliterating of draft information with blood as a part of the Baltimore 4. He denounced struggle as “a curse towards God, the human household, and the earth itself.”

Fr. Berrigan lived and labored as a part of the Jonah Home group, a mannequin for the peaceable, sustainable group he envisioned as an alternative choice to the U. S. military-industrial complicated and its manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction. In 1970 he left the priesthood and married activist nun Elizabeth McAlister, cofounder of Jonah Home, who joined him within the pursuit of social justice and a world with out struggle. Six books of Fr. Berrigan’s present detailed details about his actitivites, and his autobiography, Combating the Lamb’s Struggle, units forth his guiding rules in working for a disarmed world.

Quotes

“The Biblical view of the regulation, the courts, and the state is profoundly radical. The Bible seems to be upon the state as a form of rebellious artifice; it’s spurious, a human creation in rebel towards God. … The state, conceived in violence, and backed by violence, won’t ever obtain true peace.”
— Philip Berrigan in Combating the Lamb’s Struggle

“We Christians neglect (if we ever realized) that makes an attempt to redress actual or imagined injustice by violent means are merely one other train in denial — denial of God and her nonviolence in direction of us, denial of affection of neighbor, denial of legal guidelines important to our being.”
— Philip Berrigan in Combating the Lamb’s Struggle

“I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse towards God, the human household, and the earth itself.”
— Philip Berrigan in his final assertion earlier than his demise

Non secular Practices

Here’s a brief video of the Catonsville 9 — together with Philip Berrigan and his brother Daniel Berrigan — setting fireplace to draft information and saying the Lord’s Prayer in Catonsville, Maryland, on Might 17, 1968. The audio portion begins on the 15-second mark:

What’s one fearless factor you are able to do immediately in religion that God’s love and mercy are stronger than any authorities? If you’re caught for concepts — that is, in spite of everything, a brave lifelong follow — keep in mind that you all the time have the choice of talking up for human rights via Amnesty Worldwide actions. As you may see within the video, folks performing collectively and supporting one another will increase braveness and is a dwelling demonstration of the truth that “we’re all a part of this.”