03/04/2026
Daniel Berrigan (1921-2016)
“Every war in history, in the minds of practically all those who prepare for it or initiate it or respond to it or make money from it or propagandize it or research it or deploy it or go off to kill in it or are wounded in it or survive it—or write encyclicals about it or mount the pulpit to sanctify it—all of these find a way to set down the same thing.
Namely. The current war is a good war. It is a virtuous war, a just war, an oil war (self-justifying), a war to end all wars.
And the above justifications, from the point of view of biblical understanding, are pure scandal. At the flash point, when religion once more plays its immemorial role and falls in line, a stone is fastened about the neck of churchgoers and taxpayers and priests and popes. And they are cast into the sea.
It is better that way, says Christ. They are a scandal.”
~ Berrigan, To Dwell in Peace
Daniel Berrigan was a prominent American Jesuit priest, poet, and writer who became a leading figure in the anti-war movement of the 1960s. As co-founder of the Plowshares Movement, he famously burned draft files in 1968 to protest the Vietnam War, later becoming a leading voice against nuclear weapons.
~ image: Daniel Berrigan (Paper Cranes: Icons of Peace), block print, ink on handmade paper; 8”x8”, Kreg Yingst, 2026
