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As a longtime reader of CNY, let me raise my voice in protest and disappointment regarding the publication’s elevation of Father Berrigan’s criminal lifestyle. Father Daniel Berrigan was labeled an “Advocate for Justice,” when no such statement is remotely true. He was a felon who chose criminality over his priestly vows.
I was in law enforcement during the years Father Berrigan was rampaging with like radicals, burglarizing government buildings, unlawfully destroying government documents, all the while endangering the public. Of course his defenders claim he was only engaging his right to civil disobedience. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have absconded from sentencing; rather he would have served his time in furtherance of civil disobedience. He was nothing more than a priest who embarrassed his fellow Catholics with his unruly criminal behavior.
While I understand Father Berrigan was a figure of notoriety, he was certainly undeserving of the publication’s page-space dedicated to him. When I recall all the nuns, priests, brothers, who taught us and in many cases shaped us, one cannot help but bristle at the disproportionate coverage accorded to the life of a criminal priest.
His legacy is not one of which this Catholic would approve.
Patrick O’Connor
Bronx
