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JESUIT PRIEST DANIEL BERRIGAN: A PEACEMAKER IN OUR TIME

by Gerry McCarthy

Daniel Berrigan is an inspiring figure. For many, he is heroic. A poet, writer, professor, and retreat leader, he's been called the "greatest living peacemaker in our country" by fellow Jesuit priest John Dear.

The author of over 50 books, Berrigan's most recent offering is Wisdom: The Feminine Face of God.
When I reach him by telephone in New York City, I mention a passage in that book where he wonders how to translate the "awful name 'the renegades'." Berrigan responds in Wisdom, saying: "Whoever chooses to crush, denigrate, make sport of, deny bread or medicine or dwelling, punish, lock up, even remove from life, other humans." He adds: "More. Those who abandon the human circle. Who, acting anonymously, safe in a maze of subalterns, `paperwork,' and jargon, betray the social compact, the `Yes' of humanist and/or religious consensus, the immemorial taken-for-granted of decent implication and follow through."

      Powerful stuff. Particularly when one considers the level of poverty in Canada and the U.S.. In Canada, 1.5 million go to school every day with their stomachs empty. In the U.S., one in 4 people in a soup kitchen line is a child.

      I tell Berrigan that Statistics Canada now talks about "food insecure" households instead of poverty. What does he make of it all? "It seems to me that under the present system in both countries, and most notably here, children are more and more expendable," he says. "And that statement about the `awful name' the renegades would be true about the poor. They simply don't count in any kind of national priority or sense of compassion. In other words, let's salvage them and make a future possible for them."

      Berrigan says child poverty is a world-wide phenomenon exported from the United States into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. "It's the militarization of structures that normally -let's say in a decent society - would be turned into the direction of aiding and abetting those who are most vulnerable," he explains. "So it can't be relegated to our own borders. Although it's obviously going on here. But when one thinks of a million children dead in Iraq over these sanctions, and the refugee camps in winter in Afghanistan -- with children and the aged -- it's just heartbreaking, and must be resisted. As we're trying to do."

      Berrigan has been deeply involved in the peace movement worldwide for much of his life. Considered the leader of Catholic opposition to the Vietnam war, he and his brother Philip both went to prison for destroying draft board files over 30 years ago.

      Currently, the Bush administration is spending 30 million a day on the war in Afghanistan, so I'm interested to know what Berrigan thinks. "The first fact is that -- even from a tactical point of view -- the money is going nowhere," he says. "This is money being pushed down a rat hole, and it's bottomless. The military is simply bottomless. It will continue, as far as I can see, for the foreseeable future simply to lay waste to the land and the people, here and elsewhere, in the service of more kind of indiscriminate killing."

      Berrigan continues, adding: "It's a very somber picture that's being drawn by these technically and functionally sane leaders. They have no respect for the earth, or God, or for the human community."

      I remind Berrigan that President Bush insists he's fighting "evil." But Berrigan doesn't agree. "Biblically speaking that sort of language is blasphemous. Because all through the prophets and our own Testament, the judgement of God begins with the so-called people of God," he says. "There's never an assault on empires outside the great one, that is not proceeded by a huge judgement upon the so-called religious folk at home. That's a prophetic kind of understanding of which the super state knows nothing. We had this kind of language from Bush Sr., and we had it right from Reagan. It's a mockery of any kind of true biblical wisdom."

      Turning away from the war for a moment, I ask Berrigan about the erosion of solitude in our culture. In his book Grammars of Creation, Steiner explains that: "We are less and less trained to hear ourselves be, where such hearing may be the key condition to the creative." What does Berrigan think? "We have a kind of spiritual displacement of attention which, in my understanding, would primarily go toward one another in favour of machines that obliterate distance and absence," he says. "So we have starry-eyed people who wander the streets here, and elsewhere, with their cell phones in hand and have absolutely no sense of one another."

      Berrigan reflects on the question further by recalling what he, and others, had to learn when the Vietnam war escalated in the 1960s. "Our mentor -among others-was Thomas Merton the monk, who became a solitary, and he kept warning us in ways that were very fruitful about the shallowness of the culture, and the need of religious discipline in order to survive the culture," Berrigan says. "That was very important advice, and I think it was taken seriously by my friends. It's one solid reason why were still on our feet."

      In his recent book, Berrigan writes that "friendship with the human" is a constant theme in Wisdom. But many suggest it's harder to do the work of love in a society where everything seems marketized. So where does Berrigan see signs of hope? Where are Christians comporting themselves as humans? "I've been gifted throughout my lifetime with the most marvelous friendships in the faith and in other faiths as well," Berrigan tells me. "We found ways of functioning together that don't have to start with an argument about the existence of God, or the call and vocation to compassion and thirst for justice. These things are taken for granted. I've always had friends and had family of that quality; and a Jesuit community in New York of that quality. I'm triply blessed at least."

      Berrigan continues, saying: "I don't know that I've been the beneficiary of a very great gift here, which means that, in the deepest sense, I was never lonely. I was under no burden of doing this or that alone. I always had friends walking with me. So, I don't feel superior to this other culture which I call the prevailing culture of grab-and-get-and run. I feel a bit apart from it. But I feel, at the same time, that we're offering another way in public."

      There is another sign of hope Berrigan identifies too. "Here in New York we've been holding a vigil every Saturday for a few hours against the war and leafleting," he says. "In the two-and-a half hours, or more, we encounter perhaps two or three people that object to our being here. While hundreds and hundreds of people will take these leaflets against the war. They'll pause and want to talk with us, sit down and ponder things and read our banners. We quote Gandhi about an eye for an eye blinds everyone. So we're trying to offer something to others of our own view of decent human life; and there's a great hunger for it. That's heartfelt, because the city has suffered so grievously, and one would expect more rancor or agreement with the atmosphere of revenge and retaliation that's abroad. But it's not around here. It's very interesting."

      A final question for Berrigan. One that has disturbed me for some time. Given the level of poverty in the midst of plenty, I ask him why people -- even in faith circles -- still talk about the poor being authors of their own misfortune. How do we deal with this as Christians? "We really need to think of the mistakes -- and I'd even say the sinfulness -- of excessive wealth and the narrowing down of the scope of possibility for people who are born into a culture of poverty, " Berrigan replies. "The rich are not apt to welcome news about the sins of the rich. And the linkages between, say, the militarization of politics in Washington and the Enron scandal in Houston; all the linkages between those powerful parties -- all of whom have benefited from this scam."

      Berrigan concludes on an important point. "It seems to me in the Gospel there is no denunciation and no finger pointing at the poor. There is overt compassion healing, and inclusion," he says. "But there's a helluva assault on the rich again and again in parables and in direct language. It's very interesting who gets to say it's a sin, or mistake, or fault. That's a very powerful kind of resource. But the biblical understanding of sin is almost totally aimed at the rich and powerful who are oppressing the poor. So maybe we've skewed things around when we begin to focus on the poor and putting them down."

Gerry McCarthy is editor of The Social Edge.com