":!•,%‘^'. The Berrigans: Conspiracy and Conscience

But how shall we educate men to to it," Buck reported. "Phil, who is violence—have now turned to violent goodness, to a sense of one another, to given to putting things in a more earthy and bizarre methods? Or is it possible a love of the truth? And more ur- way, said it was all bullshit." that the Government has drawn mon- gently, how shall we do this in a bad Though one largely Catholic antiwar strous conclusions from flimsy evidence, time? group readily admitted to being the perhaps taking protesters' idle specu- —, East Coast Conspiracy, Anderson de- lations with total solemnity? The first nounced Hoover for attacking the Ber- could help rekindle the fires of protest HE scenario read like an Ian Flan- rigans. If the Justice Department had that have seemed dimmer lately and Ting doodle, a picaresque fantasy. The evidence against them, he said, it should also revive lingering fear and hate of rad- cast: a ragtag band of radical pacifists, be put before a grand jury. Hoover icals. The second could again put in many of them Roman Catholics. some made no reply, but Attorney General question the Government's responsibility priests and nuns, a physics professor Mitchell needed no advice from An- and fairness in dealing with dissent and and a Moslem from Pakistan. The lead- derson. The case was already on its stir new talk of "repression." ing actors: two hotly controversial priests way to court. Last week a federal grand The indictment gave only the bare —, 47, a Josephite. and jury in Harrisburg. Pa., issued indict- bones of the Government's case, leav- his Jesuit brother Daniel, 49. both now ments naming six defendants and seven ing a host of questions unanswered; it in the Danbury, Conn., federal prison co-conspirators—the Berrigan brothers did not even explain why Philip Her- serving sentences for burning draft rec- among them—as plotters who had rigan was named as a defendant to be ords with napalm in . The planned to do exactly what Hoover prosecuted, and Daniel only as a co-con- plot: a seemingly irrational conspiracy described. spirator who would not be tried under to blow up the heating systems at some this indictment. The grand jury was five Government sites on Washington's Serious Alternatives quite specific about one intriguing point Birthday. 1971, then next day kidnap The black comedy no longer seemed —that the conspirators had aimed to , the President's national quite so funny, though CBS's Eric Seva- enter an underground tunnel system in security adviser, and hold him hostage reid wryly suggested that, in the man- Washington that carries heating pipes until Nixon agreed to speed the war's ner of 0. Henry's famed story The and blow them up, using "destructive de- end in Viet Nam. Ransom of Red Chief, Kissinger would vices consisting of dynamite, 'plastic ex- As early as last September, FBI Di- argue any antiwar kidnapers to a stand- plosive,' primer cord and detonating de- rector J. Edgar Hoover secretly briefed still and they would eventually pay vices which had not been registered to President Nixon, Attorney General John Nixon to take him back. Kissinger was them in the National Firearms Reg- Mitchell and other top officials on the equal to the occasion, and reported that scheme. At that point. Nixon assigned his overworked staff "has written a let- Secret Service bodyguards to Kissinger. ter to the President stating that under Late in November, without naming Kis- no conditions am I to be ransomed." singer as the intended victim, Hoover de- He had heard, he quipped, that "it was scribed the plan to startled members of three sex-starved nuns" who were after a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. him. Kissinger also complained half- He attributed it to a group called the heartedly that his new Secret Service East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives. shadows had crimped his reputation as At the time, some of Hoover's numer- a swinger. Said one occasional Kissinger ous critics dismissed his testimony as a date, Barbara Hower: "Henry is so pre- grandstand play designed only to help occupied with his problems that the Se- him win funds for 1,000 extra FBI agents. cret Service man is good company." Thomas Buck, 54, a writer and long- By and large, however, reflective time friend of the Berrigans', accom- Americans could agree with Cornell panied Representative William Ander- Economist Douglas Dowd, a Berrigan son, a Tennessee Democrat and former ally: "It would be quite amusing if it skipper of the submarine Nautilus, on weren't so serious." Is it possible that a visit to Danbury shortly thereafter. the Berrigans—who, though lawbreakers "Dan said there was absolutely nothing and rebels, have always preached non- FBI DIRECTOR HOOVER

HEATING TUNNEL CONNECTING GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS IN WASHINGTON approach was the kidnaping-bombing plan, which some in the circle objected to as violent. Others argued that nei- ther kidnaping nor bombing constituted violence in a moral sense, since no per- son would be physically harmed. Ac- cording to this account, because some- thing more serious than burning draft records was involved, the Government decided to step in and stop things be- fore the plot proceeded any further. The same theory has it that the Gov- ernment's source of information on the kidnap-bomb plot was a group of non-re- ligious in the circle who became alarmed once discussion turned seriously to use of tougher tactics than those employed in the raid that the Berrigans had led against the draft board at Catonsville, Md. The principal informer was not an infiltrator but an active member of the conspiracy, although not one of those named in last week's indictment. The details of the Kissinger plot were spelled out, astonishingly, in letters and hand-carried messages exchanged among the principal conspirators, Many of the communications were carefully sealed in double envelopes, but the informant, privy to their contents, passed the de- tails along to the Government. Reichstag Fire One of the alleged conspirators con- fronted the principal informant and ac- cused him of spilling the plans to the Government; he denied it, and is now • in protective custody. TIME learned that ▪ two whose testimony has been important DANIEL BERRiGAN (LEFT) & PHILIP (CENTER) WITH U.S. MARSHAL to the Government—though neither is the chief informant—are a brother and of conspiracy statutes,• the grand jury a sister named Joseph Joynt and Pa- went on to list 22 separate overt acts tricia Chanel. Mrs. Chanel, described of conspiracy by the defendants and by one movement activist as "an afi- their co-conspirators. Among the alleged cionado of the Jesuits," was questioned acts: a visit to the underground tunnel by FBI agents at her Silver Spring, system "on or about April 1, 1970," by Md., home and was promised immunity Philip Berrigan and a priest from prosecution in exchange for her tes- defendant, Father Joseph Wenderoth; timony. Whatever she told them may and a discussion of the tunnel network not be wholly credible. She reportedly last September between Wenderoth and had a nervous breakdown and was hos- an unnamed General Services Admin- pitalized in the middle of 1970; her psy- istration engineer. In separate counts, chiatrist wired the grand jury that she the grand jury also accused Philip Ber- was incompetent to testify. Her broth- rigan and Marymount Nun Elizabeth er, who was also quizzed by the FBI, McAlister (see box) of illegally smug- works as an elevator engineer at Wash- gling written communications in and ington's Forrestal Building. The agents out of the federal prison at Lewisburg. questioned him closely about the keys Pa., where Philip Berrigan was assigned he carries in his work; they open doors PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER KISSINGER before his transfer to Danbury. to at least one Government tunnel. In one version of the events that led All the defendants are being swamped istration and Transfer Record." The lit- up to last week's indictments, the Ber- with offers to represent them. One law- tle-known, 16-mile labyrinthine tunnel rigan circle—a very loosely organized yer who has spoken for the Berrigans network in Washington is practically a group that numbers 50 to 100 militants is , who gained his New World version of the sewers of —had been discussing for more than a greatest notoriety defending the Chicago Paris—and potentially equally useful to year various means to dramatize its op- Seven. Kunstler represented the Ber- an American maquisard. The steam position to the war. One tactic was a con- rigans during the Catonsville trial. His ducts radiate from three key boiler plants tinuation of draft-board raids. Another presence may be a mixed blessing. Said in Georgetown, on Capitol Hill and one Manhattan attorney: "I didn't think near the Pentagon; on a recent rec- • One problem in conspiracy law is that con- they were guilty until I heard Kunstler ommendation from the FBI, all official spiracy is a crime of intent: proving intent is dif- was their lawyer." maps of the tunnel system have been ficult when the object of the conspiracy has The Berrigans' answer to the indict- classified and access to most of the tun- not been carried out. For conviction, federal law requires proof not only that two or more ment was an angry statement released nels has been cut off to all but a care- through Kunstler: "Thirty-eight years fully cleared few. people agreed to do something illegal, but also that at least one of them took a con- ago, the Nazi Party burnt the Reich- To satisfy the peculiar requirements crete step toward that end. stag in order to stampede the German TIME, JANUARY 25, 1971 13 people into supporting a policy of re- who oppose the war in Southeast Asia." an act as those they were contemplating. pression at home and militarism abroad. The very vehemence of the Berrigans' Many in the Berrigan circle freely The Government of the U.S., for much reply convinces most of those who know admit that they have discussed kidnaping the same purpose, [has] created a gro- them that they must be innocent. The —but only in an academic sense, weigh- qt tesque conspiracy to kidnap a presi- brothers might plot a kidnaping, their ing its virtues and defects as a revo- dential assistant and blow up the heat- friends say, but they would not lie about lutionary tactic. Thomas Buck, who sees ing systems of federal buildings in Wash- it if caught. And indeed, if the Ber- the Berrigans once a month at Dan- ington. The objective is a simple but rigans are guilty as charged, then the bury, reports that they talked it over fol- deadly one: to destroy the peace move- equation of the U.S. with Nazi Ger- lowing the kidnaping of Pierre Laporte ment by creating caricatures of those many would seem almost as irresponsible and James Cross by Quebec separatist terrorists. "They deplored the Canadian thing," says Buck. Only after Hoover's Nov. 27 charge, he insists. did he and A Talk with Sister Elizabeth the Berrigans consider kidnaping as a possible technique for the peace move- Among those indicted is Sister that "people have to take respon- ment. "We were always exploring these Elizabeth McAlister, 31, a cheery, im- sibility for their Government and ideas." he says, "but that's what it was pulsive New Yorker, who took her what it does. Change is only going —exploring an idea. They concluded vows in 1966 as a member of the to be accomplished by bringing peo- that it would be counterproductive." order of the Religious of the Sacred ple to the point of consciousness Paul Mayer. an alleged co-conspirator Heart of Mary. Sister Elizabeth has that they change their own lives." and a former Benedictine monk, re- been an art-history teacher at Mary- members Daniel Berrigan speculating mount College in Tarrytown, N.Y. Was there a plot as charged? "I'm that "bombing wasn't necessarily violent Last week she talked with TIME Cor- not going to answer that." Then con- if you didn't hurt anybody." The trou- respondent Robert Anson about her sider a theoretical question. What if ble, Father Dan admitted to Mayer, life, the and the all the nonviolent tactics had been ex- was that one could never be certain charges against her: hausted and none of them worked that someone might not be injured. and the only way things were going (-ALL her Liz, she asked, or Sis- to change was through violence? Galloping to the Rescue? ter Elizabeth, anything but Sis- Could she approve of that? "I can't That combination of rebelliousness ter Lizzie, which everyone calls her, answer. That is going too close to and goodhearted naivete is a mark of and makes her sound so young. Her the heart of the matter." She is de- many Catholic radicals—who have a father, a prosperous contractor who termined not to discuss the trial, not heritage of enthusiastic intrigue against is now dead, and her mother came even to deny her guilt, until she has conservative superiors. Even friends ex-

from Ireland in the early '20s; she 1.1.1 press dismay that so many priests and was a twin in a family of nine. nuns caught up in the resistance often There is scant sympathy at home go about their plotting with the same for her work in the peace movement. conspiratorial breathlessness that they When her youngest brother brought once brought to underground liturgies the bail money to free her last week, or challenging institutional rules. When he told her that the family thought the cops-and-robbers bustlings of the that she had probably done every- people around Philip Berrigan contrib- thing the Government charged her uted to his early capture last year in a with "and a lot more things." Manhattan church rectory, one weary bystander dismissed them as "lollipop As a young Marymount instructor, revolutionaries." Yet the selfless, Spartan, Sister Elizabeth was assigned the task unattached life of priests and nuns could, of maintaining the college's current in theory. make them apt revolutionaries events bulletin board. The daily head- in earnest. For that reason, although lines she tacked up became talismans SISTER IN 1971 SISTER IN 1965 both Philip and Daniel Berrigan have on her private path toward pacifism. been longtime proponents of optional "By 1964 I was going to New York seen and talked to the other de- celibacy, they nevertheless promote cel- City once a month for some kind of fendants. "The group is involved. We ibacy for anyone who wants to serve meeting or demonstration," she re- are responsible for one another. It is the "resistance" best. calls. In September of that year, a Spartacist thing." She explains that The lack of specific information in Dan Berrigan came to Marymount in the film Spartacus, the Romans de- the indictment, coupled with the Jus- to say Mass and speak; for Eliz- mand of the captured rebels that tice Department's refusal to amplify, abeth, he was revelatory. "What Dan Spartacus identify himself, and one has fueled the suspicions of skeptics, al- was saying very beautifully was what by one every man in the group stands though some who initially dismissed the I had been thinking and never been and replies, "I am Spartacus." indictments as some mad joke now take able to articulate." She did not meet There seems something very Irish them more gravely. In the New York him until 1966. when she was in- in all of this—the priests and nuns, Times, Tom Wicker argued that "if the troduced by her provincial superior. the faith, the romance, the ineptitude Government cannot sustain these serious "Dan was always somebody at a dis- of the plot (if there was one) and. charges—better, for instance, than it tance," says Sister Elizabeth. "Phil of course, the familiar informer. "I was able to justify those against the Chi- was an easy man to know and like. don't know about the last," she says. cago Seven—it will provide another He always starts talking to you at pre- "I mean, we don't know for certain. shocking example of the kind of of- cisely the point where he ended his Given my whole philosophy, how ficial hysteria that so often damages in- last conversation." could I operate if I didn't trust peo- dividuals and clouds the public climate." Her radicalism deepened. "I just ple? How could I live in the move- Later the Times noted editorially: "Rea- started feeling that our Government ment?" And a final musing: "I guess son must await the facts." wasn't giving us the truth, that it Phil would say that unless we are will- The Washington Post voiced the fear was saying things to justify our be- ing to go to jail for our ideas, they that the indictments were "merely an at- ing in Viet Nam that seemed to me aren't worth having. I don't know tempt to justify retrospectively the pre- to be wrong." She came to believe whether I can say that quite yet." mature and indiscreet charges made by Hoover two months ago." The FBI chief 14 TIME, JANUARY 25, 1971 EOBAL AHMAD JOSEPH WENDEROTH ANTHONY SCOBLICK NEIL McLAUGHLIN

ghetto ever since. He turned increasingly The Other Four Defendants to antiwar activity after the riots fol- lowing the death of Martin Luther EQIAL AHMAD, 40, was born in what is at St. Charles College and St. Mary's King Jr., and was relieved of pastoral now Pakistan; his father, a public of- Seminary in Baltimore. His journey into duties a year ago. ficial, was assassinated when Ahmed radicalism began as a priest serving Bal- ANTHONY SCOBLICK, 30, is the son of a for- was four. He first came to the U.S. on timore blacks; he was relieved of pas- mer Republican U.S. Representative; a Fulbright in 1957, took a Ph.D. at toral duties after taking part in a 1970 he left Phil Berrigan's Josephite order Princeton. met Dan Berrigan when both Philadelphia draft-record burning. last June to marry Mary Cain, an ex- were at Cornell. He is now a specialist FATHER NEIL MelAUGHLIN, 30, also of Bal- nun. (FBI men searching for the fu- in politics and international relations timore, went to St. Charles and St. gitive Dan Berrigan interrupted the wed- at the Adlai Stevenson Institute in Mary's and came under the Phil Ber- ding.) He has since worked with Wen- Chicago. rigan influence in 1964 while doing sum- deroth and McLaughlin among Balti- FATHER JOSEPH WENDEROTH, 35, was more mer work at St. Peter Clever Church; more blacks, earning money as a part- interested in sports than anything else he has worked in the Baltimore black time taxi driver and janitor.

himself told TIME Correspondent Dean voracious gatherer of facts, who has writ- ceptionally gifted warrior" who fought Fischer last month that he was "ab- ten well-argued books on racism and in France and Germany and won a sec- solutely convinced" that he had a "sub- war. Daniel is a prizewinning poet, a ond lieutenant's commission, After the stantial case." Has Attorney General charismatic provocateur, who became li- war, he finished college at Holy Cross, John Mitchell simply galloped to his res- onized as a modern Pimpernel while not far from Daniel, who was at Wes- cue? Fischer doubts it. "Too much is the FBI chased him last summer. He elud- ton seminary near Boston. In 1950 Phil- at stake," he thinks, "for Mitchell to ed authorities for four months, taking ip entered the Society of St. Joseph run the risk of this case backfiring. shelter with 37 families in twelve cities. —the Josephites—an order dedicated The charges are far more serious than The Berrigans were cradle rebels. Tom to work with Negroes. those leveled at the . It Berrigan, their father, was the son of would be uncharacteristic of the man Irish immigrants who had fled rural pov- Gospel Poverty to go out on a legal limb, to risk the re- erty in Tipperary, He drifted away from Ordained, they were still rebels. Nine sumption of massive antiwar protests the Roman in his teens years after ordination, Daniel wrote a in the wake of an abortive trial." because it failed to support trade union- controversial essay—now a minor classic Says Sister Elizabeth, of the impend- ism. and he did not return to it until —characterizing the priesthood as a ing trial: "It could be the death or life —as a railroad engineer in Minnesota "sheepfold for sheep" unless it was in- of the movement." It could also mean —he married a gentle German girl formed by experience in the world. Both life imprisonment for the defendants, named Frieda Fromhart. But he stayed Berrigans doted on the postwar French the maximum penalty for conspiracy to radical enough to lose his job for being Catholic avant-garde, and a year in kidnap. The trial will doubtless turn a militant socialist. When he moved France during the heyday of the worker- into a showcase for the Berrigans' ideas, East to Syracuse, N.Y., with his wife priests radicalized Daniel further. Later, particularly with Kunstler aiding the de- and six sons—Thomas Jr., John, James, at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, he be- fense. Kunstler has already assumed his • Jerome, Daniel and Philip—Tom Ber- came a rigorous preacher of Gospel pov- customary belligerent political stance. 'rigan helped to organize the city's first erty, prodding his students to "get poor," "We have to speak to the larger is- electrical workers' union. urging friends to sell their homes and sues," says one alleged co-conspirator. Under Frieda's compassionate influ- move into the ghetto, sending students ence, the home became a haven for De- Cradle Rebels down South, where brother Philip was pression drifters down on their luck, teaching in art all-black New Orleans Late last week a lawyer for the Bal- but for Tom it was also a feudal castle high school, to work with CORE. On a timore archdiocese won approval for to be ruled with a shillelagh fist. Philip 1963 trip to Europe, Daniel became fas- the release on reduced bail of Father ascribes his rebelliousness to resentment cinated by the catacomb Christians he Wenderoth and the two other defendants of his tyrannical father. Daniel traces met in Iron Curtain countries. He re- from Baltimore into the custody of their his to the year when a stingy aunt took turned lean and ascetic in a breezy archbishop, Lawrence Cardinal Shehan over the household while his mother new uniform—a black turtleneck sweat- —an unusual gesture of support for was recovering from tuberculosis. "She er, ski jacket and beret. the dissenters by the American church actually starved us," he still says in By 1965, he was in trouble: as one hierarchy. Meanwhile, in the ten-story some bewilderment. of the members of Clergy Concerned glass-and-steel federal district court Despite such knee-pants resentment about Viet Nam, he had spoken sym- building in downtown Harrisburg, the of authority, the two elected the priest- pathetically when young Catholic Roger grand jury continues to hear witnesses. hood for a career. Daniel went in young, LaPorte burned himself to death in Man- Before the grand jurors are done, they joining the Jesuits at 18 in 1939; he hattan to protest the war. Moved by may well hand up further indictments. did not visit home again until 1946. Phil- growls from Francis Cardinal Spell- However many names are finally ip enlisted and went to war; in Divine man's chancery office, the Jesuits sent thrown into the Government's case, the Disobedience, Francine du Plessix Daniel on a trip to Latin America. It two Berrigan names will almost surely Gray's admirable portrait of the Ber- was the wrong trip: exposure to social in- remain the focus of disturbed attention. rigans and other Catholic radicals, a justices not only deepened his radical at- Philip is an able political polemicist, a friend characterizes Philip as "an ex- titudes but "converted" the fellow Je-

TIME, JANUARY 25, 1971 15 suit who had been sent along as his miliar—and simplistic—jeremiad of the companion. Within ten weeks, a na- antiwar movement: the act was intended tionwide protest by Catholic liberals and as "a vivid reminder of what has hap- radicals brought Daniel home. pened to the collective conscience of Philip's career in the Josephites has our nation; we are outraged when pa- been no less contentious. He quickly per is burned, and we are not outraged came to feel that his order's treatment of when children are burned." Near the blacks was patronizing, and he preached end of the trial, the Berrigans joined that the sufferings of blacks had made the other defendants in a dramatic them superior to whites in wisdom, gen- direct dialogue with the judge, arguing tleness and maturity. Once, headed for that the jury should consider the higher Jackson, Miss., to court arrest during a morality of their act. The Catonsville bus-terminal sit-in, Philip was called Nine won sympathy, but not acquittal. back by his superior, but the losephites eventually learned to live with his fierce Total Resistance devotion to black dignity. His larger Thereafter, a dark, almost apocalyptic trouble began only after he was trans- vision of society began to dominate the ferred North to teach at the Josephite thought of both Berrigans, a view of so- seminary in Newburgh, N.Y. ciety as a kind of Catch-22 nightmare. In conservative Newburgh, he dis- Daniel had already undergone yet an- patched teams of seminarians into the other radicalization while awaiting trial. ghettos to investigate building-code vi- On a trip to Hanoi to bring back three olations. Worse, he had joined Daniel U.S, prisoners, he had been caught in in protesting the 1965 escalation of the an air raid and found himself hurtling THE SIX YOUNG BERRIGAN5 11928) Viet Nam War; at one Manhattan ral- into a shelter with a Vietnamese baby ly, Daniel declared that in "such a war in his arms. The experience became man stands outside the blessing of God both a scar and a poem: "In my arms, Fa- . in fact, under his curse." Philip did ther, in a moment's grace/The Messiah not improve his reputation in Newburgh of all my tears I bare,/reborn, a Hi- when, in an address before a community roshima child from hell." group, he linked racism and the Viet The trial simply corroborated the Ber- Nam War. "Is it possible for us to be vi- rigans' suspicion that society was not re- cious, brutal, immoral and violent at formable from within. The end of the Flame and be fair, judicious. beneficent war was no longer enough. "The con- and idealistic abroad?" he asked. Two sciousness of the radical man is in- weeks later he was banished to tegrated," wrote Daniel in No Bars to Baltimore. Manhood. "He knows that everything There he again worked to build ac- leads to everything else. So while he tivism in the ghetto. But he also itched works for the end of the war, for the for a U.S. national resolve to turn end of poverty, or for the end of Amer- against the war—and for his church to ican racism, he knows also that every lead that change. Though progressive war is symptomatic of every other war. Catholic journals spoke clearly enough, Viet Nam to Laos and on to Thailand, U.S. bishops remained equivocal: Bish- and across the world to Guatemala, op James P. Shannon (Time, Feb. 23, and across all wars to his own heart. 1970) was one of the few prelates to What he is finally looking for is not a so- speak out against it publicly. Philip lution (knowing as he does that human joined other Catholic and Protestant history has not offered solutions). He is FIVE OF THE SIX BERRIGAN5 clergy and laymen in picketing and pray- really looking for a creation: a new ins at the homes of Dean Rusk and Rob- man in a new society." ert McNamara and at Fort Myers, Va. This was now the message: radical ever closer to revolutionary thought and Then, in , Philip and three change, total resistance. Yet it was re- practice. Disciplined as they have been other men poured a mixture of human, fined. carefully restricted resistance that in both their faith and their personal calf's and duck's blood on Selective Ser- the Berrigans preached. "Do not val- lives, the Berrigans may well have be- vice files at a Baltimore draft board. idate old bankrupt methods of coercion lieved that they were able to maintain Seven months later, with Daniel now en- and murder." Daniel warned, "by cre- a limit beyond which they would not listed in the cause, the ating new, bankrupt methods of rough- go. But they do not live in a vacuum, struck with their homemade napalm, ly the same things." They remained and the world is currently teeming with and newsmen and photographers were exasperatingly ebullient: Philip was still examples of revolutionary priests. on hand to record the burning of Se- the gregarious, plainspoken man who Roman Catholic Bishop Albert lective Service records. greeted friends with bear hugs or bone- Ndongmo of Cameroun has won a com- crushing handshakes; Daniel still the mutation of the death sentence pro- Higher Morality wide-smiling purveyor of a deep, al- nounced two weeks ago after he was Catonsville, for the Berrigans, became most secret gaiety. When Daniel was ar- found guilty of complicity in rebellion something of a litmus for the respon- rested in August, the photo of the ar- and plotting to assassinate the head of siveness of the American "system." Until rest prompted Dwight Macdonald and state. In Argentina. the Priests' Third the trial, they maintained a kind of Robert McAfee Brown to identical judg- World Movement—already implicated naive hope that their message. once ments: Berrigan, grinning, was the free in the kidnap death of Former Pres- heard, would vindicate their actions. In man; the dour agent the bound one. ident Aramburu—claims 400 members. a forthcoming special issue of Holy The Harrisburg indictments now chal- In Colombia, priests and nuns are al- Cross Quarterly devoted entirely to the lenge the image of cheerful, studiously lied with Marxists in the Golconda re- Berrigans, Protestant Theologian Robert heretofore evoked sistance movement. Their paradigm is McAfee Brown tries to assess the sym- by the Berrigans, and there is a certain Camilo Torres, the Colombian priest bolic importance of Catonsville. While logic in the challenge. From angry es- who was killed fighting with guerrillas most Americans bridled at a destruction says to public protests to illegal acts of in 1966. In the U.S., the activities of of public records, Brown sounds a fa- resistance, the Berrigans have moved the Jewish Defense League, led by a

16 TIME, JANUARY 25, 1971 ;5.

to reconsider the moral implications of so generally condoned today shows that revolution—not merely as a choice but Hitler won his war after all," writes indeed as an imperative. Ellul, who fought with the French Re- Can such a theology he Christian? Je- sistance. "His enemies imitate him." sus bluntly warned that those who live by Even in their most recent books, the the sword will perish by it. His most un- Berrigans have certainly seemed to agree settling words on the subject ("I have not more with Ellul and Haring than with come to bring peace but the sword") those at home or around the world have traditionally been interpreted as who practice or encourage violence. In merely a metaphor of the divisions that one passage of his Prison Journals of a Jesus' teachings would inevitably create. Priest Revolutionary, Philip Berrigan But now some theologians. biblical schol- writes that a Christian, "on a given oc- ars and a vocal squad of popularizers are casion, may tolerate and approve—but beginning to say that a sword-bringing not actively join—a violent revolution." Christ is entirely logical; they argue that Even for such restricted participation. Jesus was in fact a revolutionary, in- is this the occasion? For all the Ber- volved in active resistance against the Es- rigan rhetoric affirming that the times tablishment of his day. Though the the- are "inexpressibly evil." the U.S. clear- ories are not widely accepted, young ac- ly has not reached that "extraordinary" tivists find the idea exciting. Father moment when Bonhoeffer would call David Kirk of Manhattan's Emmaus its Christians to armed rebellion, and Community fashioned a selection of rad- until that moment Daniel and Philip Ber- ical passages from the Bible and Church rigan have a stake in admitting few ex- JEROME, FRIEDA & DANIEL (1949) Fathers into a fast-selling little red book, ceptions. They have never been terribly mischievously titled Quotations from worried about the sacredness of prop- Chairman Jesus. Its foreword is by Dan- erty, especially property they feel is al- iel Berrigan. ready intended for evil use. But a Gan- Many theologians of revolution take dhi-like respect for human life has their cue from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the marked both the Berrigans' campaign pacifist German pastor who finally joined against the Viet Nam War and their care- the plot to assassinate Hitler and was ex- ful proscriptions against personal vi- ecuted by the Nazis in 1945. For Lu- olence in the "resistance." Only extreme theran Bonhoeffer. violent resistance was despair, it would seem, or some psy- justifiable only when the government de- chological convulsion might drive them nied its divine commission and thus for- to abandon such a position. feited its claim to obedience—an ex- traordinary. apocalyptic moment when Collision of Conscience every act of obedience to the government Whether the Berrigans are found in- became disobedience to God. Nonvi- nocent or guilty, their long-term signif- olence, argued Bonhoeffer in his Ethics icance will not be assessed at Harrisburg. and Letters and Papers from Prison, is "We will be dead, long dead. before his- the rule for normal times. tory comes up with some kind of im- His heirs, however, are not so dis- partial verdict on the Berrigans," writes criminating as Bonhoeffer. Theologian Jesuit William Van Etten Casey in the Richard Shaul!, a onetime missionary Holy Cross Quarterly. "But of one thing in Brazil. argues more broadly that in in- we can be certain now: they will be in stances of human oppression, "those history as another chapter in that old- AFTER FATHER'S FUNERAL (1969) most concerned for the well-being and est story, the collision of conscience future of man will find themselves in- with the state." That is not all. To volved" in revolution. A committee of those who read the Berrigans' writings rabbi, add a special interreligious note the British Council of Churches came and ponder the Berrigans' lives, the of militancy (see following story). to a simple conclusion harking back to greatest fascination lies not with the col- A theology of violent revolution has Thomas Aquinas: if there is a "just lision between conscience and state, but become a respectable subject even in war," then there must he a "just re- rather that between the Berrigans' con- such exalted quarters as the World and bellion" as well. In 1967, a "Message science and their own. National Councils of Churches. There from Bishops of the Third World" It can be said for the Berrigans that has, of course, always been some kind —signed by 16 Roman Catholic bishops they are, after all, prophets, and it is of theological consideration of violence —warned that in some situations rev- the business of prophets to prick the in Christian thought. The communities olution might be the only answer to human conscience. One need not agree of early Christians were largely pacifist, social evils. with a prophet to be goaded by him; but St. Augustine, faced with the real- prophets often have a view of life so sin- 1-litler's Enemies ity of an officially Christian Roman Em- gle-minded that other perceptions are pire, found it necessary to formulate Rome's Father Bernard Haring ad- distorted. But prophets should know, as the theology of the "just war." Even mits instances when violence is justified, surely the Berrigans must, that even then, however, violence remained the but has reservations about "violence in that dispensation has its limits. What prerogative of the state, although St. the name of the Kingdom of God." will be on trial at Harrisburg will not Thomas Aquinas argued in the 13th cen- So, most emphatically, does French Re- be the Berrigans' philosophy, but the tury that revolutions against tyrants formed Theologian, Jacques Ellul in his facts of the case and, ultimately, their in- could also be justified. Juan de Mar- book, Violence. Ironically enough, El- tegrity. Barring some monumental mis- iana, a Spanish Jesuit theologian, even lul modern "Christian enthusiasm understanding or misinterpretation, ei- justified the assassination of tyrants. Yet for violence" not to Bonhoeffer but to ther the Berrigans or their accusers must for centuries, while secular and anti- Hitler. According to Ellul, Hitler's at- be wrong. Their followers—and not only clerical revolutions swept Europe, the es- tacks on Christianity as a religion for their followers—would like to believe tablished churches almost always acted the weak and cowardly inspired many the brothers. They proclaim their in- as a conservative force. Only in recent Nazi Christians to join in violence for nocence; if their prophetic role is to en- years have Christian theologians begun "socially just" ends. "That violence is dure, they had better be right. TIME, JANUARY 25, 1971 17