Father Daniel Berrigan

Peace activist and writer Father Daniel Berrigan was born in 1921 in Minnesota, and raised in Syracuse, New York. In 1939, he entered the Jesuit Order, and was ordained in 1952. He and his brother Philip, also then a priest, founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship, which denounced the Vietnam War as immoral, and participated in the historic Civil Rights march at Selma, Alabama. In 1968, Father Berrigan and eight accomplices, known as the “Catonsville Nine,” raided the Catonsville, Maryland, draft-board office, and burned hundreds of files. In 1980, he founded Plowshares, an anti-nuclear arms group whose first act was raiding a missile manufacturing plant in King-of-Prussia, Pennsylvania, and hammering on missile cones. Often arrested for his protests, Father Berrigan spent almost seven years in prison. He has taught at Le Moyne College, Cornell University, and Fordham University, and has reflected on his career in 35 books of essays and poetry. He died in New York City on April 30, 2016.