Widen the Prison Gates

Writings from Jails April 1970-September 1972

By Philip Berrigan

Philip Berrigan, fugitive from justice, was apprehended by the FBI in April 1970 in a parish house in New York City as he was preparing to address a peace rally at St. Gregory's Church. He was, along with his brother Daniel, under a six-year sentence for pouring homemade napalm on draft files in Catonsville, Maryland, having already served time for pouring blood on files in Baltimore City.

Daniel eluded the FBI for several months more, but Philip went straight to jail, and this book tells what he did and saw in the two and a half years he spent in several prisons.

In Lewisburg Penitentiary he was spied on by an FBI informer, and on the evidence of letters between him and Sister Elizabeth McAlister they and five others were charged with conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up heating systems in Washington, DC, as well as draft interference--charges that carried potential life sentences.

Berrigan was dragged into an unwelcome spotlight and subjected to innuendos about his personal life and his relationships. There was the enormous task of preparing a common defense and then a lengthy trial, which was eventually to exonerate the defendants. meanwhile, inside, Berrigan joined the struggle for inmates' rights with strikes and fasts. he fought both the terrible boredom and helplessness of life in jail and the various hypocrisies of Church and State. Philip Berrigan spent these years coming to fresh terms with brother and his intimate friends, his fellow prisoners, his codefendants--but most importantly with himself: as a man, as a celibate priest, as a Christian, as an apostle of nonviolence.

The journals and letters that tell the story of these years are frank and deeply personal. They commence with the night he was arrested and end as he and Elizabeth McAlister, now married, carry on the work of the Movement in Baltimore, where it all began. behind all the headlines, here is Berrigan himself--funny, earthy, shrewd, loving, deeply spiritual, tough as nails, dedicated proponent of nonviolence. And he is here as a human being who is alternately buoyed, bored, angry, resigned, bitter, jealous, generous, and hopeful. In this revealing book, Philip Berrigan holds the mirror up to the terrible contradictions in all our public and private lives.

Publisher: Simon and Schuster 1973

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updated 10 June 2008