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I never met Daniel Berrigan, S.J. Nevertheless, he has had a profound influence on the direction of my own life and on my convictions.
I was in an editorial meeting with the staff of my college newspaper at Loyola University New Orleans in 2016 when I got a push notification from The New York Times. “Remembering Daniel Berrigan: A Penniless, Powerful Voice for Peace” identified Father Berrigan as a “Jesuit priest, poet, anti-war activist.” It had never occurred to me that those descriptors could all be applied to a single person. I was immediately drawn in.
At the time, I was experiencing somewhat of a crisis of faith, and reading about his life turned a light on. It showed me that there was an entirely different kind of Catholicism from the world of lofty theology, one that was focused on making a difference on the ground. And for people who are focused on the concrete day-to-day action, the theological questions sometimes find their answers in the work. That gave me a new way into my faith. I remember hearing the verse from the Book of Wisdom, that the godly and the just “shall shine and dart about as sparks through stubble.” That was Dan Berrigan, I thought.