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By David O’Brien, Holy Cross Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic
Studies
 Philip
F. Berrigan ’50 died of cancer
on Dec. 6 in the Jonah House, Baltimore,
Md., at 79.
Raised in upstate New York, Berrigan
served as a World War II infantry
officer in Europe, then returned
to Holy Cross. After graduation he
entered the Josephites, an order
of priests dedicated to serving African
Americans. He was among the first
Catholic priests to join the civil
rights movement. He participated
in the freedom rides of the early
1960s and achieved national prominence
leading a fight against conservative
welfare policies in Newburgh, N.Y.
Relocated to Baltimore, he became
a leader of surprising Catholic opposition
to the Vietnam War. With Tom Lewis,
now a Worcester artist, Berrigan
in 1967 carried out an action against
a Baltimore draft board, and, in
May 1968, he joined his brother Daniel,
a well-known Jesuit priest, and seven
other Catholics in burning draft
records in Catonsville, Md. “The
Catonsville Nine” established
the Berrigans as national figures,
priests risking jail for actions
of conscience. Philip and Daniel
wrote widely and groups of disciples
sprang up across the country; at
one point they went underground and
led the FBI on a well-publicized
search rather than voluntarily surrender
for prison sentences.
After Vietnam, Phil married and
began a family, but he and his wife
often alternated jail time as they,
with brother Dan and other friends,
continued their protest against nuclear
weapons. For the Berrigans and their
supporters, the weapons, their expensive
production, and the threat of use
each of us makes with them, constitute
a crime against humanity. They took
this claim so seriously that they
would argue, more or sometimes less
gently, that it is at least near
sinful to pay taxes, to keep silent,
to remain outside of prison.
Time magazine once referred
to Holy Cross as the “cradle
of the Catholic Left” because
it educated Phil Berrigan and socialist
leader Michael Harrington, author
of the influential attack on poverty, The
Other America. In 1971, the College
dedicated an issue of the Holy
Cross Quarterly to the Berrigans;
it later appeared as a well-received
paperback book. On the recommendation
of the graduating class, the College
invited Daniel Berrigan to deliver
the commencement address in 1973,
although he was not awarded an honorary
degree. A respected poet, spiritual
guide and Jesuit, Daniel appeared
occasionally at Holy Cross, most
recently delivering a powerful meditation
on America after Sept. 11, during
our spring 2002 conferences, “The
Anatomy of Evil.” Philip was
less welcome, perhaps because he
was an agitator, with very firm convictions,
unskilled at dialogue. His steel-like
determination to face hard truths
about our devotion to power, our
continuing dance with death, was
not the stuff of academic conferences,
or commencement addresses.
His family and friends knew Philip
Berrigan as a man of prayer, steeped
in the Christian scriptures, absolutely
devoted to his Church in the way
of great saints, and to his country
in the way of great radical prophets
like William Lloyd Garrison. Like
many such people, Philip Berrigan
was always something of a soldier—a
tough, unbending, relentless force
stirring even those opposed to his
political and moral positions. One
judge called him “the conscience
of his generation.” His classmates
remembered him as an honest, courageous
and loyal friend. One theologian,
on Philip Berrigan’s passing,
acknowledged that, at times, he found
Phil hard to deal with, but he believed
Berrigan helped prevent the Church “from
becoming entirely a non-prophet organization.”
In 2000, the 50th anniversary of
his graduation, some friends and
classmates proposed Berrigan for
an honorary degree, but Holy Cross,
like the Church, did not know quite
what to do with such a person. Perhaps
one thing that could have been said
had he been honored was that he understood,
in Harrington’s words about
his Jesuit education, “ideas
have consequences.” One must
live according to what one believes
is the truth. Following conscience,
Phil Berrigan stood always at the
center of things. In the fullness
of time, one suspects we will know
that the Berrigans spoke in word
and life truths we prefer to avoid.
Philip Berrigan centered his clear
gaze on the most basic issue of the
age, the value of each human life,
of each person loved by God. He kept
his gaze focused on that truth amid
hatred and hunger, wars and weapons
of incredible destructiveness. He
made us uneasy as we worked so hard
to ease away from such questions
of lives and deaths. And, can it
be said, as Phil would say, that
education sometimes helps us numb
conscience and avoid the call of
our best selves to affirm life, for
everyone and not just for ourselves?
Holy Cross could not honor Philip
Berrigan, but, in the fullness of
time, it may turn out that Berrigan,
his brother and family and friends
were, and are, right. Then it will
be the College that will be honored
to have once had a hand in forming
such a Christian, such an American,
such a man of courage and conviction.
Requiescat in pace.
Philip Berrigan is survived by
his wife, Elizabeth McAlister;
a son; two daughters; and four
brothers.
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