Pacifist Berrigan dies at 79

BALTIMORE -- National pacifist groups remembered Philip Berrigan on Saturday as a lifelong, stalwart opponent of war who was not afraid to proclaim the "gospel of nonviolence," even during several stints behind bars.

Mr. Berrigan, 79, died of cancer Friday night at Jonah House, a communal residence for pacifists he founded in 1973.

The former Roman Catholic priest staged one of the most dramatic antiwar protests of the 1960s and was arrested at least 100 times, serving a total of 11 years in prison for his antiwar and antinuclear activities.

"We have to risk as much as people who go to war risk," said Bill Sulzman, a fellow former priest who helped found Citizens for Peace in Space. "That was a challenge he laid down for us. That means going to jail, facing physical consequences for our actions."

Mr. Berrigan served as an artillery officer in Western Europe during World War II, but became nationally known as a leader of the Roman Catholic anti-Vietnam war movement in the 1960s.

He led the "Catonsville 9," a group that doused a small bonfire of draft records in homemade napalm at a parking lot on May 17, 1968.

Mr. Berrigan was released from an Ohio federal prison in December 2001 after he and others struck A-10 Warthog warplanes in a protest at the Middle River Air National Guard base. He had served 14 months.

In a statement given to his wife, Elizabeth McAlister, a week ago, Mr. Berrigan said:

"I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself."

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