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Philip Berrigan
On Friday, December 6, 2002 Philip Berrigan died at Jonah House, a community he co-founded in 1973, surrounded by family and friends. He died two months after being diagnosed with liver and kidney cancer, and one month after deciding to discontinue chemotherapy.
For over 35 years Berrigan had been one of the nation’s leading anti-war and anti-nuclear activists. He was the first U.S. Catholic priest to be jailed for political reasons and he was among the nation’s first priests to participate in the Freedom Rides in the early 1960s. He helped found the Plowshares movement which took literally a line in the Book of Isaiah that calls for swords to be beaten into plowshares. He has spent over 10 years of his life in prison stemming from convictions for more than 100 acts of civil resistance to war.
Over Thanksgiving he dictated a final statement to his wife Elizabeth McAlister. It read:
“I die in a community including my family, my beloved wife Elizabeth, three great Dominican nuns–Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert, and Jackie Hudson (emeritus) jailed in Western Colorado–Susan Crane, friends local, national and even international. They have always been a life-line to me. 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 against God, the human family, and the earth itself. We have already exploded such weapons in Japan in 1945 and the equivalent of them in Iraq in 1991, in Yugoslavia in 1999, and in Afghanistan in 2001. We left a legacy for other people of deadly radioactive isotopes–a prime counterinsurgency measure. For example, the people of Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Pakistan will be battling cancer, mostly from depleted uranium, for decades. In addition, our nuclear adventurism over 57 years has saturated the planet with nuclear garbage from testing, from explosions in high altitudes (four of these), from 103 nuclear power plants, from nuclear weapons factories that can’t be cleaned up–and so on. Because of myopic leadership, of greed for possessions, a public chained to corporate media, there has been virtually no response to these realities... "
At this point in dictation, Phil’s lungs filled; he began to cough uncontrollably; he was tired. He never continued. And then–gradually–he left us.
December 4, 2002
two days before his death, Democracy Now! spoke with Phil Berrigan’s son and daughter, Jerry and Frida, and re-ran a 1998 interview conducted inside a federal prison between Democracy Now! and Phil Berrigan. Democracy Now! then traveled to Baltimore for Berrigan’s wake and funeral.
December 9, 2002 Democracy Now! broadcasted a memorial produced by Pacifica Peacewatch’s Scott Gurian and Laurel Paget-Seekins featuring one of the last recorded interviews with Berrigan from October, 2002 and hosted a roundtable discussion on Berrigan’s life and militant non-violent civil disobedience with Plowshare activists Tom Lewis-Borbely, Kathy Boylan, Elmer Maas, John Schuchardt, Dean Hammer, Ackie Allen, Kathleen Rumpf and Rev. John Dear.
December 10, 2002 Amy Goodman interviewed historian Howard Zinn on the life of Philip Berrigan and we broadcast Brendan Walsh’s eulogy to Berrigan.
December 11, 2002 Democracy Now! aired an interview recorded with actor Martin Sheen who is a friend of the Berrigans and attended the funeral.
Democracy Now! has also been following the activism of Philip Berrigan as well as the Plowshare movement for years. Below are some related highlights:
May 26, 2003: "Remembering Peace Veteran Phil Berrigan (1923-2002) founder of the Plowshares Movement, was the first Roman Catholic priest to be imprisoned for political reasons in the United States.
Jan. 3, 2002: Philip Berrigan released from prison, confronts Bush at church
March 28, 2000: Philip Berrigan & Plowshares activists imprisoned
March 17, 2000: Philip Berrigan & other activists from Plowshares VS. depleted uranium go to court
December 20, 1999: activists hammer on fighter planes firing depleted uranium
March 17, 1998: Democracy Now! goes to the Petersburgh Federal Penitentiary to talk with Berrigan in jail
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External Links:
Articles on the Prince of Plowshares:
The Trial of Depleted Uranium by Philip Berrigan:
Compressing the Gap Between Nuclear and Conventional Weapons by Philip Berrigan
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