Stop the Killing!: A Review of Philip Berrigan’s “A Ministry of Risk”
In a new collection of his writings, Philip Berrigan continues to be a mentor and a master of nonviolent civil disobedience. The collection, A Ministry of Risk, should move us all to Christian action, our reviewer writes.
Philip Berrigan (author) and Brad Wolf (editor): A Ministry of Risk: Writings on Peace and Nonviolence. 2024. New York, USA: Fordham University Press.
“Stop the killing! Becoming human begins with that.”
With his writings in A Ministry of Risk: Writings on Peace and Nonviolence, Philip Berrigan continues to call us all to stop the killing of war and racism by engaging in nonviolent protest and civil disobedience. He remains both a mentor and a master of nonviolent civil disobedience and this collection of his writings should move us all to Christian action, particularly against the war in the Holy Land, which receives so much U.S. financial support. Many of us say our no by attending protests and writing, and Phil Berrigan wrote volumes over the course of his life, but he is best known for the “acting no” of nonviolent civil disobedience.
He died twenty-two years ago, but his words and his actions continue to call us to this ministry of risk. Proof of this is that he’s mentioned 79 times in my last two oral histories, which are the stories of the mostly Catholic resisters who engaged in what many called “holy obedience” by choosing jail and prison time for acting their no in nonviolent resistance.[1] In fact, he would often personally recruit people whom he considered to have the requisite qualities for the arduous planning, community building, actions, trials, and imprisonment that civil disobedience entails.
Phil was born in Minnesota in 1923 and grew up in Syracuse, New York. He was drafted into combat duty during World War II and was deeply affected by the racism he encountered during boot camp in the South. After discharge, he finished college at Holy Cross and then entered the priesthood, choosing the Josephites because that group was dedicated to serving African Americans. He was ordained in 1960, received further degrees and taught in the South, where he became active in the civil rights movement and began his long career in civil disobedience. He realized that our militarism, racism, and materialism had not only “to be resisted but also eradicated,” as Brad Wolf, editor of the book, writes in his Introduction.
I was able to interview Brad, and from him I learned how he became a full-time peace activist and writer, with several arrests of his own. At the conclusion of his interview, he said he wanted everyone to know that it is working for peace and continuing to take risks that make us fully human.
This book had its genesis when Brad discovered that most of Phil Berrigan’s writings were out of print and realized that all peacemakers need to read Phil’s words once again. So he contacted Fr. John Dear, who connected Brad with Phil and Liz’s three children—Frida, Jerry, and Kate—and they all cooperated beautifully, giving him full access to . Phil’s works and archives at Cornell and elsewhere. Many of the essay titles were chosen by Brad, pulling a cogent phrase from within Phil’s writings.
After a Forward by Bill Wylie Kellerman, an exciting Preface by Frida Berrigan, and Brad’s Introduction, we begin Part I, titled “A Catholic Trying to be a Christian.” In it, we can see how his commitment to nonviolent resistance evolved theologically in fourteen of his early essays.
Elizabeth McAlister, his wife for many years, was also untiring in her work for peace, including spending time in prison herself, and her life is told with much love by her husband.
Yes, Phillip’s life was a ministry of risk, and he served more than eleven years in jail and prison before succumbing to cancer on December 6 of 2002, dying in the Jonah House in Baltimore that he and Liz founded. During all of that time, in addition to raising three children and painting houses for income, he wrote and published indefatigably, with seven books to his credit and nine books about his actions and those of his brother priest, the late Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ. This collection contains selections from these books as well as from many journal and press articles.
Part Two of A Ministry of Risk, “Resisting the Vietnam War, 1967-73” is the most dramatic, with Phil Berrigan spearheading a plethora of draft file destructions which started in 1967, with draft files in Baltimore destroyed by 4 participants pouring their own blood on them. As always in his protests, Phil waited to be arrested, and the trials gave stupendous publicity and encouraged others to undertake many similar actions. (See this website for the most comprehensive list available on draft file resistance.)
While released on bail before the Baltimore Four trial, Phil said, “Let’s do it again!” And they did, nine of them, including his brother Fr. Dan, at Catonsville, this time burning the draft files in the parking lot with homemade napalm. He was convicted of conspiracy and destruction of public property and was out on bail for 16 months while the U.S. Supreme Court heard an appeal of the case. The appeal was rejected and Phil, Dan, and two others went into hiding. (Phil was apprehended after 12 days but Dan lasted much longer.) All were sentenced to three years in prison and A Ministry of Risk includes excerpts from his prison journals of this time and also an essay in The National Catholic Reporter. In “Christianity and Revolution are Synonymous,” he writes that he feels satisfied in jail as he is able to listen to and minister to the imprisoned poor. He also frequently fasted in prison. In an interesting essay in this section, Phil indicates that he sometimes “has the blahs.” That made me relate to him as I sometimes awake to the blahs myself.
While in Danbury Prison, Phil and Liz and others were indicted in Harrisburg, and Phil wrote a stirring essay, “Resistance is Essential.” Coincidentally, on March 11, 2024, Commonweal published a retrospective of the actions of both Phil and his brother Fr. Daniel and others, highlighting J. Edgar Hoover’s failed campaign to eliminate their voices in the Harrisburg trial, which resulted in a hung jury.
Part Three, “Community, Plowshares, and the Bomb: 1973-2002” chronicles the beginnings and growth of the Plowshares Movement, which is still going on, with more than a hundred completed. Each action attempts to “beat swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2:4) by symbolically disarming a nuclear weapon or a delivery system for nuclear weapons. The last one was on April 4, 2018, at Kings Bay, Georgia, home to several nuclear submarines. Phil’s widow Liz McAllister participated, along with several Catholic Workers, including Martha Hennessy, one of Dorothy Day’s granddaughters. Liz was sentenced to time served while awaiting trial, which was 17 months because of a Covid quarantine delay, and she now lives with her daughter Kate, accepting both age and dementia.
Phil and Liz married secretly om 1969 while he was under indictment for draft file destruction and on May 28, 1973, they announced their marriage publicly and began Jonah House in South Baltimore. From the beginning, it included young and old, married and single people, and both religious and lay people. The residents supported themselves by painting houses and although not formally associated with the Catholic Worker Community, Jonah House to this day exhibits many CW characteristics, including hospitality to the poor and homeless. It moved to St. Peter’s Cemetery in 1996 and its residents now care for its grounds. Phil is buried there.
One thing lacking in this book is a chronological list of all of Phil’s civil disobedience actions, including his several Plowshares actions, beginning with the very first one in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania on September 9, 1980. Here’s a chronology, and here’s scholar Art Laffin giving a wonderful history, which I was privileged to hear in Georgia during the last Plowshares trial. This book should also have listed his creative actions, such as digging graves on the White House and other lawns and pouring so much blood on the Pentagon pillars that the officials took to wrapping them. This list could accompany the wonderful photos beginning after p. 144. Brad found one of Phil’s best prayers in his papers archived at Cornell. It asks for forgiveness and the strength to resist. One of the best lines is: “For the hideous and immoral military budget from which our world’s ghettos and starving result, forgive us O Lord.”
Let us remember that and follow in Phil’s courageous footsteps to continue his ministry of risk.
[1] Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community (Vanderbilt University Press, 2012) and Crossing the Line: Nonviolent Resisters Speak Out for Peace (Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock, 2013.)
