What's Left of the Catholic Left?

With the Catholic left in retreat, at least one well-known Catholic-American maintains his activist stance. Jesuit Father Daniel J. Berrigan first captured the national spotlight eight years ago next month, when he raided the Selective Service office in Catonsville, Ohio, setting fire to a mass of draft records while solemnly reciting the Lord's Prayer. For Dan Berrigan today, the issues are different, but the basis for activism remains the same. In a speech at Harvard last month, Berrigan commented, "I am trying to take the seventies as I did the sixties, from the point of view of the New Testament."

In the past, Berrigan has several times been reprimanded by the Roman Catholic church for his use of illegal means of social protest, and has even been threatened with expulsion from the priesthood. Berrigan characterizes his current relationship with the Vatican as "an uneasy truce." He maintains, however, that his relations with the Jesuit hierarchy to which he is much more immediately responsible are excellent.

Berrigan says he last directly communicated with Pedro Arupe, the Jesuit Superior-General, while in a Washington D.C. jail last spring awaiting prosecution for digging a grave on the White House lawn in protest of U.S. nuclear armament policy. "The only problem with the grave we dug was that we left it empty. If we had filled it with little children, we might have been decorated," Berrigan commented.

While in jail, Berrigan exchanged letters with Arupe, who is based in Rome. Toward the end of Berrigan's confinement, the superior-general travelled to the United States to visit the priest. "The superior blessed me and was extremely supportive of my actions. I was very grateful," Berrigan reports.

Berrigan expresses his great pride in the part played by Jesuit priests in the anti-war movement during the sixties. He predicts that the Jesuit order will again take on a more activist role in America "within the next serveral years."

Why has popular activism declined throughout America? "The issues are certainly there. People are either just afraid to go out and deal with them or are indifferent. I know I'm trying to take the seventies seriously. Now, someone like Jerry Rubin is a clown. I don't know that Rubin ever even took himself seriously," says Berrigan.

One aspect of social protest which Berrigan takes seriously is the use of violence. Berrigan breaks with the more traditional New Testament position by refusing to condemn all violent acts. "I don't want to use non-violence as a blunt weapon against people in trouble," Berrigan told a largely hostile audience at his speech.

One cannot help observing that Father Berrigan takes great pleasure in his rebelhero status. When asked if there will be a resurgence of activism in America, Berrigan pondered a moment and then replied with a wry smile, "I am the resurgence.