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Widen the Prison Gates: Writing from Jails, April 1970-December 1972
The journals and letters of activist priest, Philip Berrigan, are presented here. From his arrest and more than two years in different prisons, Father Berrigan fights for inmate rights and personal exoneration of his dedication to nonviolent protest and plan to kidnap Henry Kissinger.
261 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1973
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November 24, 2022
In his book, Philip Berrigan shares his thoughts on prison, nonviolent resistance, the government, the Vietnam conflict, and other topics. He was an interesting person with extensive life experience, who devoted his life to breaking down "prison walls" to expose and protest against the American government's aggressive foreign policy, police violence, and other social issues. What impressed me about his writing is that he can smoothly transition from topic to topic, without losing the clarity of his thoughts.
He speaks of his shock at the misery and the ugliness of life in jail, and still insists that he felt a great satisfaction being there. He shared Martin Luther King's views. Jail made the most sense to him because that is where one identified with the poor and where one became a spokesperson for their dignity and their rights. He had no regrets about being "stuffed into the rabbit hutch" because he knew that he had burned the draft files to save lives, and he accepted the consequences of his actions. He believed that what he was doing was right. "The state might make the laws, but it did not have a license to kill in Southeast Asia, or anywhere else." He had damaged the government's property. What was that property, though? The eighteen-year-old boys who were sent to fight in Vietnam apparently belonged to the government. The rice paddies, jungle, villages, hospitals, schools, Buddhist pagodas of Vietnam all belonged to the Pentagon.
As Berrigan expresed it, "the war in Southeast Asia was our country's paranoia and racism metastasized into genocidal madness." He did not treat the government's decision to intervene in Vietnam as a mistake or a misunderstanding. To him, it was a campaign to exterminate Vietnam's people. He compared it to the Puritans' killing their Native American benefactors and the Christian church's sanctioning the slave trade.
However, according to him, Vietnam was not only a war on people. It was a war on the meaning of human communication. Words were nothing but rhetorical devices. "The President was sending children off to die for dictators in Vietnam, Congress was giving away this man's tax money to thieves and drug pushers in Central America, timber companies were clear-cutting his forests, bomb manufacturers were poisoning his environment. None of this mattered, because the state makes the laws; therefore, the state is the law. If the state becomes a polluter, a drug pusher, or war machine, citizens still must obey the law."
If one accepted this, though, what happened to the kindom of God, the author asks. Those who truly believe in nonviolence and in justice, according to him, had to break unjust laws, although the state would charge and convict them, and send them to jail. He saw all Americans as prisoners of an unrepresentative government and the means that this government used to stay in power.
His naivety about the judicial system was destroyed when he became a defendant himself. Like me and probably like most us, he had learned at school that courts and judges protect citizens from government tyranny, that the judicial branch is the people's guardian against unjust, or illegal power, and that we are protected by due process and the assumption that all defendants are innocent until proven guilty. However, he came to realize that the reality is different: the court protected the government from the people, served the state, not ordinary citizens, and existed to maintain order, not to secure justice.
Interestingly, Berrigan, while committed to nonviolent revolution, supported the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam and even thought about joining it at some point, but gave up on the idea because, after being a soldier, he had vowed never to pick up a gun again, not even for the most righteous cause. He refused to condone violence.
Nevertheless, he believed that the people of Vietnam, who were fighting for justice, should be allowed to choose their own means to that end. They were the ones who were being tortured, raped, robbed, and executed, so he did not think that he could ask them to lay down their arms – doing so would mean death for their families and their village. "It is one thing to preach from a distance, quite another to live and die in a war zone," he writes.
The most memorable observation of the author for me was regarding the police. He saw in the growing number of federal prisoners a sign that the police were willing to identify themselves with oppression, use force more arbitrarily, and make informal alliances with vigilante elements of the right. He calls the policemen "an occupation army," which is the government's first line of defense against the people.
WIDEN THE PRISON GATES is as illuminating and thought-provoking as any work written by Berrigan. I like his dedication to his beliefs, especially to the idea that violence does not solve anything. This book will be an interesting read regardless of the reader's thoughts about the author's views.
He speaks of his shock at the misery and the ugliness of life in jail, and still insists that he felt a great satisfaction being there. He shared Martin Luther King's views. Jail made the most sense to him because that is where one identified with the poor and where one became a spokesperson for their dignity and their rights. He had no regrets about being "stuffed into the rabbit hutch" because he knew that he had burned the draft files to save lives, and he accepted the consequences of his actions. He believed that what he was doing was right. "The state might make the laws, but it did not have a license to kill in Southeast Asia, or anywhere else." He had damaged the government's property. What was that property, though? The eighteen-year-old boys who were sent to fight in Vietnam apparently belonged to the government. The rice paddies, jungle, villages, hospitals, schools, Buddhist pagodas of Vietnam all belonged to the Pentagon.
As Berrigan expresed it, "the war in Southeast Asia was our country's paranoia and racism metastasized into genocidal madness." He did not treat the government's decision to intervene in Vietnam as a mistake or a misunderstanding. To him, it was a campaign to exterminate Vietnam's people. He compared it to the Puritans' killing their Native American benefactors and the Christian church's sanctioning the slave trade.
However, according to him, Vietnam was not only a war on people. It was a war on the meaning of human communication. Words were nothing but rhetorical devices. "The President was sending children off to die for dictators in Vietnam, Congress was giving away this man's tax money to thieves and drug pushers in Central America, timber companies were clear-cutting his forests, bomb manufacturers were poisoning his environment. None of this mattered, because the state makes the laws; therefore, the state is the law. If the state becomes a polluter, a drug pusher, or war machine, citizens still must obey the law."
If one accepted this, though, what happened to the kindom of God, the author asks. Those who truly believe in nonviolence and in justice, according to him, had to break unjust laws, although the state would charge and convict them, and send them to jail. He saw all Americans as prisoners of an unrepresentative government and the means that this government used to stay in power.
His naivety about the judicial system was destroyed when he became a defendant himself. Like me and probably like most us, he had learned at school that courts and judges protect citizens from government tyranny, that the judicial branch is the people's guardian against unjust, or illegal power, and that we are protected by due process and the assumption that all defendants are innocent until proven guilty. However, he came to realize that the reality is different: the court protected the government from the people, served the state, not ordinary citizens, and existed to maintain order, not to secure justice.
Interestingly, Berrigan, while committed to nonviolent revolution, supported the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam and even thought about joining it at some point, but gave up on the idea because, after being a soldier, he had vowed never to pick up a gun again, not even for the most righteous cause. He refused to condone violence.
Nevertheless, he believed that the people of Vietnam, who were fighting for justice, should be allowed to choose their own means to that end. They were the ones who were being tortured, raped, robbed, and executed, so he did not think that he could ask them to lay down their arms – doing so would mean death for their families and their village. "It is one thing to preach from a distance, quite another to live and die in a war zone," he writes.
The most memorable observation of the author for me was regarding the police. He saw in the growing number of federal prisoners a sign that the police were willing to identify themselves with oppression, use force more arbitrarily, and make informal alliances with vigilante elements of the right. He calls the policemen "an occupation army," which is the government's first line of defense against the people.
WIDEN THE PRISON GATES is as illuminating and thought-provoking as any work written by Berrigan. I like his dedication to his beliefs, especially to the idea that violence does not solve anything. This book will be an interesting read regardless of the reader's thoughts about the author's views.
February 13, 2023
A MARVELOUS SUMMATION OF THEIR DEEDS AND WORDS
The authors wrote in the first chapter of this 1997 book, “they are religious pacifists who condemn every act of violence… Since their 1968 burning of draft files in Catonsville, Maryland, during the height of the Vietnam War… their sense of the times, like their tactics, hasn’t changed. This leads Catholic pacifist and historian Gordon Zahn to say that the civil disobedience… and especially the higher-stakes ‘Plowshares’ actions with their inevitably lengthy prison terms---yield ‘diminishing,’ or even self-defeating, returns. Other activists agree, saying that there are better approaches to peace-making than getting locked up for … years at a time. The Berrigans counter that ‘imprisonment could hardly be more to the point.’ … how could one living under ‘sane’ leaders threatening violence on a grotesque and epic do otherwise? And if the jails aren’t overflowing with prisoners of conscience… so what? At least they’re trying… Their faith depends on their politics… in the mid-1960s, when the Berrigans started to take to the streets, and Phil became the first American priest to go to jail for giving political offense…” (Pg. 9, 12, 15)
They recount that Phil explained, “‘My experience in the [military] service showed me that there was nothing better I could do with my life than devote myself to helping blacks.’ … the Josephites had been founded at the turn of the century as the only American order of priests dedicated to serving black Catholics.” (Pg. 84)
They note, “[Dan] and Phil tried to join in a Freedom Ride in 1961 but both were forbidden by their superiors to take part. In 1963, the brothers were invited to join with other clergy in attempting to integrate the faculties at the Jackson, Mississippi, airport. Again, Dan’s superior flatly turned him down. But Phil gained permission…” (Pg. 100-101)
They point out, “As progressive Catholics were contemplating strategies for opposing the Vietnam War, they naturally turned to Thomas Merton for guidance. Merton’s opinions on war, peace, and faith were extremely influential among the growing number of priests, nuns, seminarians, and other Catholics with the church’s role in society and the moral timidity of its hierarchy… Thomas Merton thought highly of the Berrigan brothers… Merton and Dan developed a friendship beyond the ordinary.” (Pg. 106-107)
They also report, “in a time of creeping tension between black militants and white civil rights workers, Black Power spokesman Stokely Carmichael said there was one priest in American who could be trusted. ‘Phil Berrgan,’ he declared, ‘is the only white man who knows where it’s at.’” (Pg. 116)
They explain, “Phil… kept secret from Dan his relationship [marriage] with Liz [Elizabeth McAlister]. But in Dan’s case, all evidence points to the fact that he has been true to his vow of celibacy.” (Pg. 159) Dan also voiced “support of ousted Jesuit John McNeil, author of ‘The Homosexual and the Church’ and founder of the gay Catholic group Dignity.” (Pg. 161)
After the 1968 Catonsville raid, “Perhaps no public disputation was more painful and revealing of the early signs of strain within the religious left than the theologian Rosemary Ruether’s serious and disparaging comments… Dan replied… Neither he nor Phil … wanted to isolate themselves or excommunicate their antagonists… ‘my brother… is refused bail… the prosecutor has named him a public menace… No one of us remember when he did any harm to any man. But a war which seemed… a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, has all but engulfed us.’” (Pg. 211)
…
Dan was ordered to report to prison in April 1970, but he instead went underground: ‘I wasn’t avoiding punishment,’ Dan later explained, ‘just delaying it and protesting the war.’”(Pg. 222) “Accompanied by two allies… They drove for thirty minutes to an empty cabin. The next morning they moved on to a farmhouse… The hunt continued… Dan popped up here and there.” (Pg. 224-225)
During the trial, Liz and Phil’s relationship was revealed, and two of their priest co-defendants “felt they had been betrayed by… Liz and Phil’s love relationship, particularly since Phil had been so strong a supporter of clerical celibacy.’” (Pg. 283)
A 1973 speech by Dan which had some strong anti-Israel statements: “Dan didn’t help matters by proclaiming, ‘I am a Jew, in resistance against Israel,’ as if trying… to equate his own suffering with the history of millions of Jewish victims… Once Dan’s words were aired in public, and despite his best intentions, they precipitated anger among Jews because of the [Catholic] church’s historic anti-Semitism.” (Pg. 309-311) They add, “Two decades later, he believed people still held the speech against him…” (Pg. 324)
They report, “Phil and Liz and the Jonah House community had begun a series of actions that would eventually number a hundred or more, here and abroad, and would last well into the nineties, though they were rarely reported in the broadcast or print media.” (Pg. 336)
They say of Phil’s Plowshares movement, “To drastically shrinking media attention, they tenaciously insisted that the government’s nuclear weapons’ first-strike strategy was a crime… Throughout the eighties and nineties, Phil and his miniscule, fearless, loyal band walked into military camps, only naval and air force bases, into the mouths of war industries with astonishing ease, prepared to accept occasional draconian punishments far great than that meted out to many violent criminals…” (Pg. 347)
They conclude, “Dan and Phil were gifts, transient perhaps, possibly myopic in what they thought might be accomplished, but gifts nonetheless. When they finally pass from this life, we will need a new generation of Berrigan brothers to remind us once more… that they tried to do as beckoned by the prophet Amos…’hate the evil, and love the good. And establish justice in the gate.’” (Pg. 352)
This book will be “must reading” to anyone studying the Berrigan brothers, and their movement.
The authors wrote in the first chapter of this 1997 book, “they are religious pacifists who condemn every act of violence… Since their 1968 burning of draft files in Catonsville, Maryland, during the height of the Vietnam War… their sense of the times, like their tactics, hasn’t changed. This leads Catholic pacifist and historian Gordon Zahn to say that the civil disobedience… and especially the higher-stakes ‘Plowshares’ actions with their inevitably lengthy prison terms---yield ‘diminishing,’ or even self-defeating, returns. Other activists agree, saying that there are better approaches to peace-making than getting locked up for … years at a time. The Berrigans counter that ‘imprisonment could hardly be more to the point.’ … how could one living under ‘sane’ leaders threatening violence on a grotesque and epic do otherwise? And if the jails aren’t overflowing with prisoners of conscience… so what? At least they’re trying… Their faith depends on their politics… in the mid-1960s, when the Berrigans started to take to the streets, and Phil became the first American priest to go to jail for giving political offense…” (Pg. 9, 12, 15)
They recount that Phil explained, “‘My experience in the [military] service showed me that there was nothing better I could do with my life than devote myself to helping blacks.’ … the Josephites had been founded at the turn of the century as the only American order of priests dedicated to serving black Catholics.” (Pg. 84)
They note, “[Dan] and Phil tried to join in a Freedom Ride in 1961 but both were forbidden by their superiors to take part. In 1963, the brothers were invited to join with other clergy in attempting to integrate the faculties at the Jackson, Mississippi, airport. Again, Dan’s superior flatly turned him down. But Phil gained permission…” (Pg. 100-101)
They point out, “As progressive Catholics were contemplating strategies for opposing the Vietnam War, they naturally turned to Thomas Merton for guidance. Merton’s opinions on war, peace, and faith were extremely influential among the growing number of priests, nuns, seminarians, and other Catholics with the church’s role in society and the moral timidity of its hierarchy… Thomas Merton thought highly of the Berrigan brothers… Merton and Dan developed a friendship beyond the ordinary.” (Pg. 106-107)
They also report, “in a time of creeping tension between black militants and white civil rights workers, Black Power spokesman Stokely Carmichael said there was one priest in American who could be trusted. ‘Phil Berrgan,’ he declared, ‘is the only white man who knows where it’s at.’” (Pg. 116)
They explain, “Phil… kept secret from Dan his relationship [marriage] with Liz [Elizabeth McAlister]. But in Dan’s case, all evidence points to the fact that he has been true to his vow of celibacy.” (Pg. 159) Dan also voiced “support of ousted Jesuit John McNeil, author of ‘The Homosexual and the Church’ and founder of the gay Catholic group Dignity.” (Pg. 161)
After the 1968 Catonsville raid, “Perhaps no public disputation was more painful and revealing of the early signs of strain within the religious left than the theologian Rosemary Ruether’s serious and disparaging comments… Dan replied… Neither he nor Phil … wanted to isolate themselves or excommunicate their antagonists… ‘my brother… is refused bail… the prosecutor has named him a public menace… No one of us remember when he did any harm to any man. But a war which seemed… a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, has all but engulfed us.’” (Pg. 211)
…
Dan was ordered to report to prison in April 1970, but he instead went underground: ‘I wasn’t avoiding punishment,’ Dan later explained, ‘just delaying it and protesting the war.’”(Pg. 222) “Accompanied by two allies… They drove for thirty minutes to an empty cabin. The next morning they moved on to a farmhouse… The hunt continued… Dan popped up here and there.” (Pg. 224-225)
During the trial, Liz and Phil’s relationship was revealed, and two of their priest co-defendants “felt they had been betrayed by… Liz and Phil’s love relationship, particularly since Phil had been so strong a supporter of clerical celibacy.’” (Pg. 283)
A 1973 speech by Dan which had some strong anti-Israel statements: “Dan didn’t help matters by proclaiming, ‘I am a Jew, in resistance against Israel,’ as if trying… to equate his own suffering with the history of millions of Jewish victims… Once Dan’s words were aired in public, and despite his best intentions, they precipitated anger among Jews because of the [Catholic] church’s historic anti-Semitism.” (Pg. 309-311) They add, “Two decades later, he believed people still held the speech against him…” (Pg. 324)
They report, “Phil and Liz and the Jonah House community had begun a series of actions that would eventually number a hundred or more, here and abroad, and would last well into the nineties, though they were rarely reported in the broadcast or print media.” (Pg. 336)
They say of Phil’s Plowshares movement, “To drastically shrinking media attention, they tenaciously insisted that the government’s nuclear weapons’ first-strike strategy was a crime… Throughout the eighties and nineties, Phil and his miniscule, fearless, loyal band walked into military camps, only naval and air force bases, into the mouths of war industries with astonishing ease, prepared to accept occasional draconian punishments far great than that meted out to many violent criminals…” (Pg. 347)
They conclude, “Dan and Phil were gifts, transient perhaps, possibly myopic in what they thought might be accomplished, but gifts nonetheless. When they finally pass from this life, we will need a new generation of Berrigan brothers to remind us once more… that they tried to do as beckoned by the prophet Amos…’hate the evil, and love the good. And establish justice in the gate.’” (Pg. 352)
This book will be “must reading” to anyone studying the Berrigan brothers, and their movement.
September 3, 2007
this book was really interesting. it's philip berrigan's writings from his time in prison. i was interested in reading more about his views on nonviolence and organizing. it was fascinating to read what he thought of prison, and just that, but his whole theological framework around prison. also fascinating and educational to read about how he organized in prison.
November 25, 2013
Flashes of brilliant insight into our society couched in a diary from prison.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews