It is something to get recognition with an image on the cover of the US Time Magazine. It happens infrequently if you are a catholic priest, rarer still for two priests who happen to be brothers, radical men in their determination to protest for peace.

 But on the cover of the Time issue for January 25^th 1971 , that is exactly what happened. Philip and Daniel Berrigan shared the news stands.

 Philip died in December 2002,having served as a Josephite priest  for a number of years. He married in 1970. Throughout his life and that of his brother Daniel, a Jesuit who died at the end of April, their names were continually at the forefront of Civil Rights protests and anti-war demonstrations.

 Dan Berrigan died at the age of 94 on 30^th April, the anniversary date of the fall of Saigon that brought an end to the Vietnamese conflict, a priest still sincere in the cause of peace. His name will always be associated with the burning of draft cards in Catonsville . Daniel Berrigan and his brother Philip, along with seven other Catholic protesters, used homemade napalm to destroy 378 draft files in the parking lot of the Catonsville, Maryland , draft board on May 17, 1968. They became known as the Catonsville Nine. After receiving gaol sentences, Dan Berrigan went on the run for four months, wanted by the FBI   till he was caught and imprisoned.

 Throughout his life, his understanding and trust in the Gospel guided his actions. He could do no other. He wrote and published many books, including a number of much admired poetry collections. That legacy remains. His frequent attendance at speaking engagements, well into his late 80s, demonstrated his commitment to  causes to which he had dedicated his life. One friend in the US wrote at the end of an email to me after Dan Berrigan’s passing : ‘May he rest in even greater peace than he preached.’

 A friend of Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton among many, the example of his living out his Christian convictions on the streets of towns and cities in the United States was there for all to see. His was a voice that spoke for the voiceless, the disadvantaged, the oppressed. He stood alongside Martin Luther King in his fight for Civil Rights for African Americans. His priesthood was not a tidy affair of parish church, mass on Sunday and the avoidance of problems. He might be opposed by the civil and church authorities but still he pressed on for his voice was needed, his presence required.

 The ‘radical priest’ referred to in Paul Simon’s song ‘Me and Julio down by the school yard’ is said to refer to Dan Berrigan.

 How do we respond to a man such as this, whose disregard for his civic safety- he spent a number of years in prison for his faith-led actions, who willingly faced up to Church authorities when he was criticised yet remained a loyal priest through his life?

 Here was a man whose Gospel-based faith allowed him to act in no other way, whatever the personal cost.  

 Each generation, including our own, has men and women of courage who offer us leadership, not just through the written word but also by what they say and how they act. In consequence they are given a rough ride, often spoken about scornfully by friends and foes alike, but still they persist with a chosen path inherently guided by faith.

But that has always been the lot of the prophet, not recognised by his own people, his proclaiming of truth ignored on the street, in the market place or in the hallowed surroundings of precious buildings. Given the pronouncements and actions of Francis in his three short years as Bishop of Rome, it is not going too far to recognise in Dan Berrigan a man who epitomizes a priest in the role of one who knows the smell of his sheep.

 Together with his brother he took part in the Selma march of 1965 to Montgomery Alabama with hundreds of others from the Civil Rights movement. At the height of the cold war Berrigan attended, in 1963, the Christian Peace Conference in Prague , Czechoslovakia , which was replete with antiwar rhetoric. He then travelled to Russia , where he witnessed large-scale government persecution of Christians, and to South Africa , where the injustices of apartheid were evident everywhere. Berrigan later said that this trip overseas helped him understand “what it might cost to be a Christian,” and “what it might cost even at home, if things continued in the direction I felt events were taking.”

 There is a reflection here in the current persecution of Christians in the Middle East and further afield. There is a risk just being who we are, let alone doing something about it.

 In remembering Dan Berrigan sj, let us do so with patience and gratitude for his life of compassionate witness. May he now rest in the peace of the Lord.

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