Faith, Resistance, and the Future: Daniel Berrigan's Challenge to Catholic Social Thought

Introduction

1 This book has its origins in a conference at the University of Notre Dame inthefallof2005,undertheauspicesoftheAmericanCatholicPhilosophical Association. The conference theme, selected by James Marsh, the president of the association for that year, was “Social Justice: Its Theory and Practice.” To begin the conference, a special panel session was organized on the influence of Daniel Berrigan, SJ, on Catholic social thought. All of the papers of the panelists are included in this book as well as Marsh’s presidential address. To preserve the flavor and excitement of the panel, the editors have preserved most of the essays in their initially shorter form. Two kinds of questions arose in the panel discussion: What kind of challenge , insight, inspiration, and critique does Daniel Berrigan’s life and work offer to Catholic social thought and practice, inside and outside the university? And what can serious academic discussion and critique bring to his thought, that is, how does it test, deepen, and enrich his thought? Almost all of the contributors to this volume have some association with universities in the United States, and slightly fewer with Catholic universities. Introduction James L. Marsh and Anna J. Brown Marsh-Introduction.indd 1 Marsh-Introduction.indd 1 2/1/2012 4:03:30 PM 2/1/2012 4:03:30 PM 2 James L. Marsh and Anna J. Brown To the knowledge of the editors, the discussion in this book is the first of its kind to occur. Berrigan’s work has been influential and has been responded to in many extra-academic contexts in the country and the world. But conspicuous in its absence has been any serious academic, scholarly discussion of his work. The editors consider such a discussion long overdue. We have recruited thinkers and scholars who were already familiar with and known to be interested in Berrigan’s work, and those who were less familiar with his thought. The result has been a rich sympathetic and critical treatment of the meaning and impact of his work. What kind of challenge does he present to academic business-as-usual in Catholic universities ? How can the work of the individual Catholic academic be transformed if such a person took Berrigan’s work seriously, in theory and practice? Do Catholic universities need Berrigan’s vision to fulfill more integrally and completely their own mission? We discerned, therefore, at least two fruitful inside–outside relationships in the book: that between Catholic academe and Berrigan’s life and thought, and that between those who are already familiar with Berrigan’s work and consciously influenced by it, and those who, up to this point, have not been. Also the book inscribes an arc between the relatively immediate dialogic context of the panel discussion through a series of longer papers, recruited for the book, to the final conversation between Berrigan, Brown, and Marsh. Berrigan’s Life Dear Friends I choose to be a jailbird (one species is flourishing) in a kingdom of fowlers . . .1 Daniel Berrigan was born on May 9, 1921, in Virginia, Minnesota, to Frieda Fromhart Berrigan and Thomas Berrigan. He was the fifth of six sons. Of his early years in Minnesota, and later in Syracuse, New York. Berrigan writes: “We were Depression babies, all of us . . . [yet] I remember vividly that we housed and fed a continuing number of homeless men during those dark years of loss.”2 Instilled in Berrigan was the understanding that justice was intrinsic to faith. He reflects, nearly sixty years later, upon what he learned early on in his life: Despite all, many good people do not give up. Many have a sense, drawn from religious tradition, that they are summoned to a faith that Marsh-Introduction.indd 2 Marsh-Introduction.indd 2 2/1/2012 4:03:30 PM 2/1/2012 4:03:30 PM Introduction 3 does justice. Together with others drawing on other traditions, they long to create a social fabric woven to the benefit of all, a society marked by compassion and altruism, with special attention paid to the powerless and disenfranchised.3 In 1939 Berrigan entered the Jesuits, the Society of Jesus. In a recent interview, he recalls that upon receiving the informational brochures of religious congregations and orders, some sent “nice brochures that showed tennis courts and swimming pools, but the Jesuits sent an unattractive leaflet , no pictures and no come-on language, just a brief...