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Philip Berrigan, Civil Rights Activist

& Anti-War Activist Dies at Home in Baltimore, MD

Baltimore, MD - Phil Berrigan died December 6, 2002 at about 9:30 PM, at Jonah House, a community he co-founded in 1973, surrounded by family and friends. He died two months after being diagnosed with liver and kidney cancer, and one month after deciding to discontinue chemotherapy. Approximately thirty close friends and fellow peace activists gathered for the ceremony of last rites on November 30, to celebrate his life and anoint him for the next part of his journey. Berrigan's brother and co-felon, Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan officiated.

During his nearly 40 years of resistance to war and violence, Berrigan focused on living and working in community as a way to model the nonviolent, sustainable world he was working to create. Jonah House members live simply, pray together, share duties, and attempt to expose the violence of militarism and consumerism. The community was born out of resistance to the Vietnam War, including high-profile draft card burning actions; later the focus became ongoing resistance to U.S. nuclear policy, including Plowshares actions that aim to enact Isaiah's biblical prophecy of a disarmed world. Because of these efforts Berrigan spent about 11 years in prison. He wrote, lectured, and taught extensively, publishing six books, including an autobiography, Fighting the Lamb's War.

In his last weeks, Berrigan was surrounded by his family, including his wife Elizabeth McAlister, with whom he founded Jonah House; his children Frida, 28, Jerry, 27, and Kate, 21; community members Susan Crane, Gary Ashbeck, and David Arthur; and extended family and community. Community members Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert, Dominican sisters, were unable to be physically present at Jonah House; they are currently in jail in Colorado awaiting trial for a disarmament action at a missile silo, the 79th international Plowshares action. One of Berrigan's last actions was to bless the upcoming marriage of Frida to Ian Marvy.

The wake and funeral will be held at St. Peter Claver Church in West Baltimore, (1546 North Fremont Avenue, Baltimore MD 21217); calling hours: 4-8 PM Sunday December 8 with a circle of sharing about Phil's life at 6 PM; funeral: Monday, December 9, 12 PM. All are invited to process with the coffin from the intersection of Bentalou and Laurens streets to St. Peter Claver Church at 10 AM (please drop off marchers and park at the church).

A public reception at the St. Peter Claver hall will follow the funeral mass; internment is private. In place of flowers and gifts for the offertory, attendees may bring pictures or other keepsakes. Mourners may make donations in Berrigan's name to Citizens for Peace in Space, Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons, Nukewatch, Voices in the Wilderness, the Nuclear Resister, or any Catholic Worker house.

Funeral for Peace Activist Berrigan

December 9, 2002 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 7:57 p.m. ET

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Carrying puppets, signs and roses, hundreds accompanied a pickup truck carrying the coffin of peace activist Philip Berrigan as it wound its way Monday through the rough neighborhood where he once served as a priest. Family members stood in the back of the truck along with the plain wooden coffin, hand-painted with red roses, as bagpipers played ``Amazing Grace'' while the procession marched to the funeral at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in west Baltimore.

``He was bigger than life -- extremely human and heroic and committed,'' said actor Martin Sheen, who marched in the funeral parade. ``He was a great inspiration and a mentor to me and others.'' Berrigan, a former Roman Catholic priest, died of cancer Friday at age 79.

He staged some of the most dramatic anti-war protests of the 1960s and was arrested at least 100 times, serving a total of 11 years in prison for his anti-war activities. He led the ``Catonsville 9,'' a group that doused a small bonfire of Selective Service draft records in homemade napalm at a parking lot in the Baltimore suburb on May 17, 1968.

His brother, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, also was a member of the group. Berrigan's daughters, Frida and Kate, read a list of the jails and prisons throughout the country where they visited their father. ``He learned patience through bolts and bars ... through long sacrifice and little reward,'' Daniel Berrigan told mourners.

Some mourners carried sticks topped with cloth birds with tattered wings, while others sang Christian hymns and Buddhist monks chanted and beat drums. Ched Myers, 47, an activist, writer and teacher from Los Angeles, said Berrigan was ``a historic pioneer in the act of civil disobedience.'' In the church, mourners held signs reading ``Arm the world with hugs,'' ``Wage Peace,'' and ``Plowshares versus Depleted Uranium,'' a reference to the name of Berrigan's Plowshares for Peace.

``He was a great prophet of peace,'' said the Rev. John Dear, 43, a Jesuit priest who lives in Cimarron, N.M. ``He spoke the truth against war.'' 

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/

Contact: www.annefeeney.com   unionmaid@earthlink.net 

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posted 10 June 2008