Daniel Berrigan

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Daniel Berrigan (2008)

Daniel Berrigan SJ (born May 9, 1921 in Virginia , Minnesota , † April 30, 2016 in New York City , New York ) was an American Jesuit , writer and peace activist .

Life

Daniel Berrigan grew up in a large family in Syracuse, New York ; he was the fourth of six brothers. His Irish-born father Thomas was a railway engineer and trade unionist, his deeply religious mother Frieda, née Fromhart, came from Baden . He entered the Jesuit order, studied at their St. Andrew-on-Hudson seminary in Hyde Park , New York, and at Woodstock College in Woodstock near Baltimore . In 1952 he was ordained a priest. He taught at an elementary school in New Jersey and at a high school in Brooklyn . From 1957 he was Professor of New Testament at Le Moyne College, a Jesuit university in Syracuse . In 1963, during a sabbatical year in France , he experienced the upheaval in the local Catholic Church. He was deeply impressed by what the movement of the workers priests had started and that it continued to work even though it had been banned by the Roman Curia .

Berrigan became famous when he and his brother Philip Berrigan publicly burned draft warranties for the Vietnam War on May 17, 1968 in Catonsville , Maryland . Since then he has fought against poverty and violence.

Daniel Berrigan and several other members of the ploughshare movement broke into a General Electric nuclear weapons factory in King of Prussia on September 9, 1980 . They destroyed two warhead casings with hammers, they poured blood that they had drawn from themselves onto work drawings and tools. They then persisted in prayer until they were arrested. The members of the "Eight of the Ploughshare" were sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison in a sensational trial. The case occupied the courts for years. In the end, the prison sentence was one and a half years.

Quotes

Some may think that spirituality and political action are absolute opposites, but fortunately I know thousands of believing people who confess to the word of God with full conviction through protests and actions against unjust power relations.

What could man be today, what would the structures look like if man were really human? We hardly know. We hardly dare to know. We find ourselves at our level and drift with the current.

Works

  • The bridge: pictures of the church
  • Unusual Prayer: A Book of Psalms
  • The boat is not the shore , along with Thich Nhat Hanh
  • Philip Berrigan: Christians Against Society. US priests in prison ( Prison Journals of a Priest Revolutionary , 1970, Ger.). With a foreword by Reinhold Iblacker. Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verl., 1971, 156 pages. ISBN 3-499-11498-4 (Contains Philip Berrigan's prison diaries, two underground letters by Daniel Berrigan and documents of the radical Catholic resistance to the Vietnam War)
  • The trial of the Catonsville Nine ( The Trial of the Catonsville Nine , dt. Translation). Frankfurt a. M .: S. Fischer Verlag, 1972, 62 pages. ISBN 3-10-005601-9
  • We don't sprinkle incense on Mars . Berlin [East]: VOB Union Verlag, 1973, 130 p. (The only publication in the GDR of texts by the Berrigans. The narrow volume brings together excerpts from life without repression , Christians against society , the text of the play The Trial against the Nine von Catonsville as well as the documentation of a discussion on TV radio in the GDR, which was broadcast after this play was broadcast.)
  • The elevator in the Tower of Babel is broken. Biblical stories from the New World ( The Hole in the Ground. A Book of Parables , German translation), Munich: Verlag J. Pfeiffer, 1977, 166 pages. ISBN 3-7904-0250-8
  • Life without repression. A Jesuit changes society ( No Bars to Manhood ). Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1972, 207 pages. ISBN 3-466-42027-X
  • Ten Commandments for the long march to peace ( Ten Commandments for the Long Haul , 1981, German translation). With an introduction by Fulbert Steffensky. Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag, 1983, 157 pages. ISBN 3-7831-0699-0 . Reissued as Goldmann Taschenbuch 6876, 1985, ISBN 3-442-06876-2 .
  • Preface to the words of Chairman Jesus . Compiled by David Kirk ( Quotations from Chairman Jesus , 1969, German translation). Freiburg i.Ue .: Laetare Verlag, 1971, 181 pages, ISBN 3-85740-003X
  • Between the pentagon and the altar. Excerpts from interviews . In: Nonviolent Action. Quarterly issues for peace and justice , 12th year, 1st and 2nd quarter 1980, issue 43/44, pp. 23-27

Awards

literature

  • Cross versus war. The Berrigan brothers . German edition of a special issue of the American magazine Holy Cross Quarterly , Vol. 4, No. January 1, 1971 entitled The Burden of the Berrigans . Kösel-Verlag, Munich 1971, 157 pages. ISBN 3-466-42023-7
  • Michael Schroeren: Life in the Resistance. A portrait of the Berrigan brothers . In: Umweltmagazin , magazine of the Federal Association of Citizens' Initiatives Environmental Protection (BBU), 5th year, No. 4 (July / August 1982), pp. 14-17. ISSN  0172-973X
  • Michael Schroeren: Life in the Resistance. In memory of Philip Berrigan . In: moral courage . The magazine for pacifism and antimilitarism of the DFG-VK, No. 1, February 2003, p. 14/15.
  • Hans-Jürgen Benedict , Hans-Eckehard Bahr (Hrsg.): Churches as carriers of the revolution. A political model of action using the example of the USA . Furche-Verlag, Hamburg 1968, 190 pages.
  • Hans-Eckehard Bahr: Daniel and Philip Berrigan . In: Hans-Jürgen Schultz (Ed.): Lovers of Peace . Kreuz-Verlag, Stuttgart 1982, pp. 248-260. ISBN 3-7831-0676-1
  • Gerhard Oberkofler : Peace Movement and Liberation Theology. Marxist fragments commemorating the peace fighter Daniel Berrigan SJ (1921-2016) . University publications Volume 42. trafo Wissenschaftsverlag Berlin, 131 pages. ISBN 978-3-86464-139-8

Web links

Commons : Daniel Berrigan  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ nytimes.com: Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94
  2. ↑ Deutschlandfunk , Nachrichten, May 1, 2016, 12:00, deutschlandfunk.de: Peace activist and writer Daniel Berrigan died at the age of 94 ( memento of the original from May 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deutschlandfunk.de
  3. ↑ Willi Winkler : Soldier Christi. Peace activist Daniel Berrigan has died . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 3, 2016, p. 7.
  4. ↑ Hans-Christian Kirsch: violence or non-violence . Page 361, ISBN 3-401-03635-1
personal data
SURNAME Berrigan, Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Jesuit, writer, and peace activist
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Virginia, Minnesota , USA
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 2016
Place of death New York City , USA