Edited by Daniel Cosacchi and Eric Martin Published by Orbis Books, 2016 Reviewed by Mike Kelly. 

Daniel Berrigan SJ and his brother Philip have waged a struggle against war and injustice in the United States of Amercia since the 1960s. Dan died in April this year, Philip in 2002. This book is less about the activism the Berrigans engaged in for all their life, than about their close relationship — a profound love and respect that each had for the other. Both served time in prison for their anti-war activities, Philip 15 years altogether, and they supported each other at every moment. They wrote to each other weekly, sometimes daily. The subjects of the letters range widely, from deeply spiritual reflection, to chatty personal or family news, to telling comments about society. On occasion a sharpness enters the relationship — as when Philip, at that time a Josephite priest, neglects to tell Dan that he has married former nun, Elizabeth McAlister. But there is always an unwavering love coming through — love for each other and for the task they have given themselves. On Philip’s 64th birthday (he was in prison) Dan wrote:

“Thank you for your verve and good humour and a heart as big as the world, and beautiful as we long to make the world. Thank you for ‘not giving up’, which says nothing of keeping at it; as you do with style and celebration and a single eye on the ‘one thing necessary’.”

In another letter Jesuit Dan, prophet and poet, makes a telling comment about the place of the Church in the world:

“Our thesis, passing strange, is that theology and the Bomb (the one having lost its capital letter and the other gaining it) cannot easily coexist . . . (The jails) are our true seminaries — in there our theology will be forged and our God worshipped.”

The brothers burned draft records and damaged nuclear weapons. They gave lectures and wrote books. Together they served as a nexus for dedicated people in the United States and beyond. Their friends included Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Sister Helen Prejean, Fr John Dear and many others. Their relations with the Church were often rocky. But Dan and Philip Berrigan understood each other well and their letters are a treasure-trove of their independent thought.

We in New Zealand have a proud history of non-violent resistance to injustice — from Te Whiti and the Parihaka community, Archie Baxter and his fellow pacifists of World War I and the opposition to apartheid in the 70s and 80s. The Berrigan story recording the relationship of the “holy outlaws”, Dan and Philip Berrigan in the USA, has had its influence in New Zealand. Christchurch lawyer, Moana Cole, was an early participant in the Plowshares Peace movement initiated by the Berrigan brothers. Moana was jailed in the USA in 1991. The Waihopai Three, Adrian Leason, Sam Land and Peter Murnane OP, were acting under the umbrella of Ploughshares in 2008.

The Berrigans were a crucial part of a movement that has “spoken the truth to power” over a long period — and still speaks. In 2012 Sister Megan Gillespie Rice aged 80, a Plowshares activist, was jailed for breaking into a security base in Tennessee. The Berrigan Letters is a valuable account of the personal side of the brothers’ struggle for peace and justice.

Published in Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 209, October 2016:28.