On behalf of many young men, I lifted them up as examples of Catholic pacifism, at a time when draft boards insisted that there was no such thing. Who would be my ethical North Star now?in a moment’s grace, the messiahI was a twenty-two-year-old seminarian in 1965, struggling to imagine myself in what already seemed the impossible life of the Catholic priest, when I came upon the writing of Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit poet. After high school, Berrigan applied to the Society of Jesus, the Catholic religious order known as "The Jesuits." Still Oedipally challenged, perhaps, I needed more than ever the affirmation of a father, and in Father Berrigan I had it. Still, my priesthood was defined by what opposition I joined in. What was Creation if not the Word of God, and what were human words if not sacraments of God’s real presence? Daniel Berrigan poems - List of all poems by Daniel Berrigan. Daniel Berrigan was the author or co-author of more than 50 books, including 19 volumes of poetry. He testified, in his expansive life, to language itself as an opening to transcendence. THANK YOU!MEDIA FOR THE PEOPLE!
They illegally trespassed onto the General Electric Nuclear Missile facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and poured blood onto documents and files. A week later, what for me was an equally shattering protest occurred. - The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. Appeared in Poetry Magazine. The activists were the historian Howard Zinn and Daniel Berrigan. Through the tumult, my feelings of admiration for both men mellowed into affection. I would later learn that my father was staggered by Morrison’s act, even though he regarded it as profoundly misguided. The collection's structured into three parts, and while the first part has some good poems ("Billy Bones", for one) it wasn't until the long poems of part two came along that the whole thing really kicked up into gear. I sponsored rallies for them, went hungry in fasts they led, went to court with them, and greeted them when they got out of jail. Perhaps inspired by Morrison (who, no doubt, had been inspired by self-immolating Buddhist monks in Vietnam), a young Catholic named Roger LaPorte set himself aflame across from the United Nations in New York, where, only a month before, Pope Paul VI had cried, “War no more!”About three months after that Pentagon demonstration came the hinge on which the war turned: the Tet offensive, in January, 1968.
Daniel Berrigan’s rage against war was fuelled by his undying hope, rooted in faith, that peace is possible.