A Moral Giant: Remembering Father Dan Berrigan, co-founder of the nuclear weapons abolition Plowshares movement

This photo of Dan Berrigan (smiling, center) shows his apprehension after many months living underground, evading arrest. Despite being on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, Dan Berrigan continued to speak and preach against the Vietnam War, once narrowly slipping through the dragnet by hiding inside a giant puppet after addressing an anti-war rally.As reported by Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!, Father Daniel Berrigan passed on Saturday, April 30th, just shy of his 95th birthday. Democracy Now! dedicated its entire hour-long episode on Monday, May 2nd to remembering Father Dan Berrigan, "a moral giant." Those interviewed included Father Berrigan's niece Frida Berrigan, a columnist for Waging Nonviolence and the author of "It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood."

Dan Berrigan co-founded the nuclear weapons abolition Plowshares movement, named after the Old Testament prophet Isaiah's injunction to beat swords into plowshares, and study war no more. In 1980, Berrigan, his brother Philip, and several others conducted a disarmanent action at a nuclear weapons manufacturing plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, disabling a nuclear warhead, then submitting to arrest.

Both Berrigan brothers, and their comrades in disarmament, would continue to commit numerous non-violent civil disobedience anti-war and anti-nuke actions for the rest of their lives, for which they ended up spending long time periods in prison (Philip Berrigan spent a total of 11 years in prison).

Dan Berrigan's funeral mass on Friday, May 6th at St. Francis Xavier Church in New York City was livestreamed; the eulogy delivered by his niece Frida Berrigan is posted online.