Daniel Berrigan

Father Daniel J. Berrigan, S.J. died at the age of 95 on April 30, 2016. Colman McCarthy, former columnist for the Washington Post, called Berrigan "a major figure in the radical left of the 1960s and 1970s," who died at a Jesuit residence at Fordham University in the Bronx. Known as a poet and non-violent activist, the priest led antiwar protests, was unable to be with "The Baltimore Four", but most famously spent two years in prison for acts of civil disobedience that became well known through his play and the film "The Trial of The Catonsville Nine." His brother Philip, also a priest (but who left active ministry), was one of the "Four" and "Nine" and died in 2002. Survivors include a sister and three brothers. Former Washington Post columnist McCarthy described the Catonsville event: "In May 1968, Father Berrigan, his brother and fellow priest Philip Berrigan, and seven other activists entered a Selective Service office in Catonsville, Md. They gathered hundreds of draft files, lugged them outside and, with a recipe of kerosene and soap chips taken from a Green Berets handbook, burned them to ashes. The Catonsville Nine, as they became known, were arrested, and in a five-day trial in October 1968, they were found guilty of destruction of government property." Father Berrigan may be best known in the film world for his cameo in the 1986 British drama The Mission, written by Robert Bolt, in which he spoke only one word, "No!" While he lived a "YES!" to God's will as he discerned it, that included a clear and definitive "No!" to violence and war.