Daniel Berrigan
Daniel Berrigan
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Daniel Berrigan

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Daniel Berrigan

Daniel Joseph Berrigan SJ (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author.

Berrigan's protests against the Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admiration, especially regarding his association with the Catonsville Nine. He was arrested multiple times and sentenced to prison for destruction of government property, and was listed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "most wanted list" after flight to avoid imprisonment (the first-ever priest on the list).

For the rest of his life, Berrigan remained one of the United States' leading anti-war activists. In 1980, he co-founded the Plowshares movement, an anti-nuclear protest group, that put him back into the national spotlight. Berrigan was an author of some 50 books, a teacher, and a university educator.

Berrigan was born in Virginia, Minnesota, the son of Thomas Berrigan, a second-generation Irish Catholic and active trade union member, and Frieda Berrigan (née Fromhart), who was of German ancestry. He was the fifth of six sons. His youngest brother was fellow peace activist Philip Berrigan.

At age 5, Berrigan's family moved to Syracuse, New York. Berrigan was devoted to the Catholic Church throughout his youth. He joined the Jesuits directly out of high school in 1939 and was ordained to the priesthood on June 19, 1952. In 1946, Berrigan earned a bachelor's degree from St. Andrew-on-Hudson, a Jesuit seminary in Hyde Park, New York. In 1952 he received a master's degree from Woodstock College in Baltimore, Maryland.

Berrigan taught at St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City from 1946 to 1949.

In 1954, Berrigan was assigned to teach French and theology at the Jesuit Brooklyn Preparatory School. In 1957 he was appointed professor of New Testament studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. The same year, he won the Lamont Prize for his book of poems, Time Without Number. He developed a reputation as a religious radical, working actively against poverty and on changing the relationship between priests and lay people. While at Le Moyne, he founded its International House.

While on a sabbatical from Le Moyne in 1963, Berrigan traveled to Paris and met French Jesuits who criticized the social and political conditions in Indochina. Taking inspiration from this, he and his brother Philip founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship, a group that organized protests against the war in Vietnam.

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