Jesuit: "Fire Bomber"

Demon Decades

A look back at DePaul's history with Laura Bollin

by Laura Bollin Community Editor

Daniel Berrigan:
the rebel priest

Daniel Berrigan, who recently donated his entire personal library to DePaul’s Special Collections and Archives, was an unusual kind of priest. He burned draft files, wound up on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted and was subequently sent to prison for his activism. Berrigan was born in the small town of Virginia, Minn. in 1921. He was ordained as a priest 31 years later, in 1952. In the 1950s, Berrigan and his brother Phillip were very active in the civil rights movement. In the 1960s, their attention turned to Vietnam. In early 1968, Berrigan traveled with Howard Zinn, an author and historian, to Vietnam to witness the release of three American prisoners of war. Berrigan wrote a book about his experience, made up of diary entries and poems, called "Night Flight to Hanoi." The experience let Berrigan see the horrors of war for himself, and inspired him to do more to protest the war.

Berrigan’s brother and three other men destroyed conscription files by pouring blood over them.

Berrigan followed in his brother’s footsteps by joining with eight other men and burning the draft files of the Catonsville Draft Board, in Catonsville, Md. in May 1968.

Berrigan didn’t just pour gasoline on the files and strike a match; he burned the files using napalm, the same substance used to burn the jungle and villages during the Vietnam War.

In a highly publicized trial, Berrigan was sentenced to three years in prison for his actions. Believing that what he did was an act of civil disobedience, not a crime that deserved time in prison, he fled on the day he was supposed to report to prison. While he tried to escape the FBI, he gave speeches protesting the war for four months. He was apprehended, and began his three-year sentence in August of 1970. During his prison sentence, Daniel wrote poems, letters and essays about the war.

After his release in 1972, Daniel moved to France and lived with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk whom he met when Hanh took a trip to the United States in 1966

to inspire Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to speak out against the war. During that time, the two men spoke often about social and religious topics, and recorded their conversations. The resulting book was called "The Raft is Not the Shore." Berrigan also recorded sermons about non-violence, a compilation of which is now called Berrigan Raps.

Berrigan now resides in a Jesuit community in New York.

He has written over 50 books, volumes of poetry and a one-act play. He continues to protest war and injustice, and because of that, continues to get arrested. He had a close friend in University Ministry at DePaul in 1999, and therefore decided to donate his entire personal library, over 700 volumes, to the archives. This includes some of the poetry and letters he authored. He continues to donate new material every year. To see the Berrigan collection, or learn more about him, visit the Special Collections and Archives, Room 314 in the Richardson Library. The collection will be on display through fall quarter 2008.

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