Disarmed And Dangerous: The Radical Life And Times Of Daniel And Philip Berrigan, Brothers In Religious Faith And Civil Disobedience [Paperback]

Murray Polner (Author), Jim O'grady (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813334497 | ISBN-13: 978-0813334493 | Publication Date: March 20, 1998

What transformed Daniel and Philip Berrigan from conventional Roman Catholic priests into “holy outlaws”—for a time the two most wanted men of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI? And how did they evolve from their traditionally pious, second-generation immigrant beginnings to become the most famous (some would say notorious) religious rebels of their day?Disarmed and Dangerous, the first full-length unauthorized biography of the Berrigans, answers these questions with an incisive and illuminating account of their rise to prominence as civil rights and antiwar activists. It also traces the brothers’ careers as constant thorns in the side of church authority as well as their leadership of the ongoing Plowshares movement—a highly controversial campaign of civil disobedience against the contemporary arms trade and nuclear weapons.Murray Polner and Jim O’Grady plumb the Berrigans’ contradictions: among them, Philip’s secret marriage, while he was still a Josephite priest, to Elizabeth McAlister, then a Catholic nun, which led to their dismissals by their respective religious orders and Philip’s excommunication from the church; and Daniel’s speech faulting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and the resulting criticism loosed upon him from pro-Israeli Americans and many of his allies on the left.Disarmed and Dangerous is a fascinating study of brothers linked by faith and the dreams of peace and social justice in a century bloodied by war, mass murders, and weapons of immense destructive power. It is, above all, an original contribution to modern American history that is sure to be widely read and discussed.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Murray Polner has had a rich and varied career as a teacher, college professor, writer and editor. He is the author of When Can I Come Home. His writings have also appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, the Washington Post, Commonweal, The Nation, Village Voice and the Boston Globe. He lives in Great Neck, New York. Murray Polner is an editor and the author of No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran and has written for The New York Times, The Nation, Commonweal, The Washington Monthly, and many other publications. Jim O’Grady is a journalist and the author of the biography Dorothy Day: With Love for the Poor.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (March 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813334497
• ISBN-13: 978-0813334493
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,191,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN IMPORTANT AND WELL DONE NEW BOOK ABOUT THE BERRIGANS!, November 18, 2000

By 

David Roger Allen (Freeland, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disarmed And Dangerous: The Radical Life And Times Of Daniel And Philip Berrigan, Brothers In Religious Faith And Civil Disobedience (Paperback)

The most famous Roman Catholics in America in the 1960's were two priests who were (still are) brothers: Philip and Daniel Berrigan, the former a priest member of the Society Of St. Joseph (commonly known as the "Josephites," an order dedicated to serving the Black community), the latter a Jesuit. SSJ and SJ respectively.

Starting in the 1960's, these two priests broke a lot of laws, and served a lot of time in various jails and prisons. They became famous as objectors to the War In Vietnam, and later expanded their respective "ministries of protest" to other situations of social injustice, as they perceived it.

Murray Polner and Jim O'Grady have written a fascinating account of the Berrigan brothers worth buying and reading. The Berrigan brothers became famous as two ninths of the "Catonsville (Maryland, USA) Nine," a group of protesters who, on May 17, 1968, raided a suburban Baltimore (Maryland, USA) draft board office, took its files of eligible young men about to be drafted into military service and possible combat in the then on-going War In Viet-Nam, and burned the draft board's records in a nearby parking lot, using a home made form of napalm. Only some of the records were removed and burned. The records left behind were stained with blood the two priests helped to pour over those records as a symbolic protest about the work of the draft board in promoting the War.

That was only the start of the civil protest career of these two men. In the same year (1968), they traveled to Hanoi (the same year Jane Fonda did.) In succeeding years and decades, they continued their dramatic forms of protest, and were often jailed and served hard time in tough prisons.

The story of the Berrigan Brothers is one every enthusiast about the social revolution of the 1960's should read. All Roman Catholics should read it, too, especially Josephites and Jesuits. These two priests put those two Catholic religious orders in the NEW YORK TIMES and in other prominent media many times, and in some ways no doubt determined the future of those orders, the Catholic Church (especially in the USA), and the USA itself.

Much has been written both about and by the Berrigan Brothers. This 1997 book is an important addition to the important history of these important Catholic priests. Buy this book from Amazon.Com. Read it carefully. You won't be sorry.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspiring read, December 3, 2003

By 

K. McHugh "crunchyapple" (East Stroudsburg, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Disarmed And Dangerous: The Radical Life And Times Of Daniel And Philip Berrigan, Brothers In Religious Faith And Civil Disobedience (Paperback)

Not having been alive in the 60s and 70s, I had heard the Berrigan brothers mentioned among Catholic (and non-Catholic) peace-and-justice types, but had no idea about the tremendous work they did (that daniel is still doing) and the huge impact they made in the struggle for social justice, peace, integration, and social morality. This is a must-read, not only for those interested in the Catholic Left, but for anyone who is mired in the day-to-day skirmishes against an oppressive government. This book entertains AND inspires!

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK'S TENTH ANNIVERSARY URGES ITS RENEWED READING: THE EMPIRE HAVE NO GREATER TERROR THAN OF OUR PACIFIST PRIESTS, January 11, 2008

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Disarmed And Dangerous: The Radical Life And Times Of Daniel And Philip Berrigan, Brothers In Religious Faith And Civil Disobedience (Paperback)

Politicians who have never known war make much of our alleged constitutional right to bear arms, and thus urge us on to their imperialist and profitable war-mongering and to fight with one another.

We however must make much of our Faith-based right NOT to bear arms, following as we do in the footsteps of Our Lord Jesus Christ who ordered Saint Peter to put up his sword raised in defense as He was unjustly arrested on Olivet, reminding us all that who lives by the sword dies by the sword, commanding us directly to love our enemies.

The brave and ordained Brothers Berrigan, pacifist priests, remind us of this as well with a lifetime of true and courageous Christian witness. This book adequately presents their pilgrimage with the Prince of Peace.

We may also of course read their own original works. The late lamented and Reverend Father Phillip Berrigan, may he rest in peace, first wrote Prison Journals of a Priest Revolutionary, inscribed book by the Ameri and many other books abound admiring his courageous witness for peace in nonviolent and Christian action. The Reverend Father Daniel Berrigan continues to produce profound and challenging Biblical exegesis, in particular of those courageous Old Testament prophets who share his courageous proclamation of the peace of God and who share his rejection and the despising of his own fellow believers. Such essential works include the eponymous Daniel: Under the Siege of the Divine, the agonized Ezekiel: Vision in the Dust, the noble, undaunted yet rejected prophet Isaiah: Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears, the poignant Jeremiah: The World, the Wound of God, and the lesson for endurance and perseverence in our Faith found through the persecuted patriarch Job: And Death No Dominion, each of these fine and fortifying works for our lectio divina.

Please here in this highly recommended biography we find a portal to know and understand the brothers Berrigan, courageous prophets in our Faith. Nevertheless they may certainly be the first to say: read their books, read the book, and most urgently to get out and act powerfully for peace.