Two of the Catholic Nonviolent Resistance Leaders attend Dedication of Collection

The refrain of an old Baptist hymn states: “I’m going to stay on the battlefield until I die, until I die.” Lately, this hymn seems to echo from the walls of DePaul University’s Special Collections room on the third floor of the John T. Richardson Library, 2350 N. Kenmore Ave. It is here that the papers, correspondence and memorabilia of three of the Catholic nonviolent resistance movement’s most indefatigable leaders were recently dedicated.

The collection documents 120 collective years of anti-war protest and resistance by the Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, S.J., his brother Philip Berrigan, and Elizabeth McAlister, Philip’s wife. Fr. Berrigan and McAlister attended the recent dedication of the collection at the Richardson Library. Phillip Berrigan is serving prison time, along with other members of an anti-war group known as the Prince of Peace Plowshares, for the 1997 destruction of government property aboard a nuclear-missile destroyer in Bath, Maine.

Philip Berrigan, a former Josephite priest, and Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and poet, staged significant protests against the Vietnam War during the 1960s and ‘70s. McAlister, a former member of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, left the religious order to marry Philip, and, together, they founded the Jonah House Community for the poor in Baltimore.

Richard Meister, DePaul’s executive vice president for Academic Affairs, formally accepted the collection at the dedication. “Daniel and Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister have been active in the civil rights, justice and anti-war movements, and they have continued and sustained their vision for 40 years,” he said. “With this collection, we are privileged to keep their vision alive at DePaul University.”

Meister continued by stating that DePaul, with its Catholic, Vincentian tradition and continuous engagement with the urban community, is the appropriate home for this collection and the vision of the resisters – a vision, he assures, DePaul “will continue to protect, make accessible and make live.”

The collection contains articles, papers and publications that are important to the history of the Berrigan-McAlister protests, as well as some aspects of the Catholic Worker Movement and nonviolent resistance. The bulk of the correspondence in the collection consists of Philip’s correspondence from jail while serving time for his involvement in the Plowshares protest.

Philip’s letters to his wife, her letters written during her own imprisonment in 1971, and some of Daniel’s correspondences are included. The collection contains an entire file on actions undertaken by the Plowshares. There is also information on Block Island, Rhode Island, where Daniel Berrigan evaded the FBI at the home of lawyer and theologian William Stringfellow.

Daniel was hunted by the FBI for his involvement in the 1968 Vietnam War protest in Catonsville, Ohio where draft files were taken from the government’s Selective Service Offices and burned with a mixture of homemade napalm. Daniel served 18 months in a federal prison after a celebrated trial, which he would later turn into an award-winning play, “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.”

Daniel is also a well-regarded protest poet. In addition to his own publications, there are works of poetry included in the collection that are self-published gifts sent to him over the years from other poets. The collection also includes program and lecture notes from various conferences and retreats that the Berrigans and McAlister either administered or attended. Manuscripts found in the collection include a sermon written by Daniel while evading law enforcement officials in the late 1960s, as well as Philip’s prison writings. Memorabilia found in the collection contains photographs, flyers, programs and artworks

The collection concludes with author Murray Polner’s research files for his book on the Berrigans entitled, “Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Life and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan.”

The Berrigan-McAlister Collection also contains 700 volumes from the personal libraries of Stringfellow and Daniel Berrigan. The books are catalogued and shelved with the collection. Many of them are annotated by Berrigan and Stringfellow.

The idea of housing the Berrigans’ papers at DePaul was conceived by Robert Ludwig, director of DePaul’s University Ministry. Ludwig met Daniel Berrigan 30 years ago when he was completing his doctoral dissertation on “Theology and Politics in America” and sought an interview with one of the country’s leading authorities on the topic. Ludwig echoes Meister that having the collection at DePaul makes for a perfect match. “The work of the Berrigans in the peace movement and their work with the poor is very similar to what St. Vincent de Paul did in pre-Revolutionary France,” said Ludwig.

He said having the collection at the university will allow students who may be envisioning similar futures to realize that their goals are very attainable. “It gives students the basic research materials for understanding how ordinary people have gotten into this kind of work and stayed there,” said Ludwig.

McAlister said she hopes students and everyone else who observe the collection will take at least one thing away: “The humanness. Not the distancing that sainthood has, but that we are merely human beings, struggling to be as close to the conditions of other humans as we can. And if we can do it, you can do it.”

The DePaul University Special Collections section of the Richardson Library, room 314, is open to the public Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Berrigan-McAlister collection will be exhibited until the end of June. For more information about this collection or other holdings of the university, contact Kathryn DeGraff, archivist and director of special collections, at 773/325-2167.