By November 10, 2005
Imagine a man who has been arrested hundreds of times and who was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for illegal actions against the Vietnam War. Imagine this man being nominated – twice – for the Nobel Peace Prize. Imagine that he was a Roman Catholic Priest of the Jesuit order, but that he was later excommunicated for marrying and breaking his vow of celibacy. You have just imagined Daniel Berrigan, peace activist and former associate director for Cornell United Religious Work (CURW) in 1970. “The time that Berrigan worked for Cornell was a terribly dramatic and important and iconic moment in Cornell’s history,” said Gurdon Brewster, Cornell’s former Episcopal chaplain and who served as assistant minister to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sr. in 1961 and again in 1966 before coming to Cornell. “I knew Berrigan well. When he was brought to Cornell by the late Rev. Jack Lewis, who served as Director of CURW from 1965 to 1981, everyone knew the trustees [of the University] were not smiling when they heard Berrigan was coming. He was a controversial character, but Vietnam was a horrendous war and only people without a conscience would disagree.” In 1997, Mairead Maguire, Northern Ireland’s 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate, described Daniel and his activist brother Philip as “the most prominent faith-based voices for peace and nonviolence in the United States.” Berrigan began his non-violent protesting career as a member of the Catonsville Nine. In 1969, Berrigan and eight other peace activists walked into the draft board of Catonsville, Md., and removed over 375 Vietnam draft files which they burned with homemade napalm concocted by a local high school physics teacher; all nine then waited for the police to arrive and arrest them. The Catonsville Nine, who were all Catholic, issued this statement at the time: “We confront the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies, and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country’s crimes. We are convinced that the religious bureaucracy in this country is racist, is an accomplice in this war, and is hostile to the poor.” Berrigan was sentenced to three years in prison for his involvement with the Catonsville Nine, but he did not turn himself into authorities and refused to serve his time. Instead, Berrigan went into hiding, and much to the chagrin of the FBI he was not apprehended for over a year, during which Berrigan made impromptu appearances at public events and rallies. The most famous of these appearances occurred mere weeks after Berrigan failed to report for imprisonment. On Monday, April 20, 1970, The Cornell Daily Sun reported that Berrigan appeared the previous Friday before a crowd of 15,000 at Barton Hall during the Freedom Seder, “a radical adaptation of the traditional Passover service” written and led by Rabbi Arthur I. Waskow. Amid music, speeches and the burning of draft cards, Berrigan mounted the stage to tumultuous reactions and several standing ovations. “There had been a rumor going around for a while that Daniel would make an appearance at the Seder,” Brewster said. “Both the Police and the FBI were in the crowd, but they didn’t want to nab him while he was up on the stage, giving his talk, so they waited. It turned out they waited too long.” According to The Sun, the FBI “did not attempt to arrest Berrigan during his two hour stay on the stage, and failed to capture him after he slipped out of Barton Hall around 10:30 p.m.” The Sun also describes a performance by the Bread and Puppet Theater, a group of “towering, ghostlike puppets” that snaked their way through the crowd and eventually ended up on stage. “The puppets were 20 feet tall, had these huge heads and were making fun of the political issues of the day,” Brewster said. “After their show was over they slinked off the stage and, lo and behold, Berrigan was gone. Everybody knew that Berrigan had snuck out under one of the puppets – everybody except for the FBI, that is,” Brewster added. After slipping past the FBI at the Freedom Seder, it appears that Berrigan left Ithaca for good. He was scheduled to appear at an event later that same weekend, but instead he sent along a statement to be read in his place. The statement, a radical and powerful farewell with shades of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” explains why Berrigan did not stay longer at Cornell. “-I had to face a decision. Was it better to remain in Barton Hall, awaiting the moment when the hunters, equipped with open season licenses [draft cards], could take aim and bring me down? I could not. I chose once again to disappear, to guard my honorable status of ‘fugitive from injustice.'” Berrigan continues: “Dear friends, in a criminal time, the innocent man must choose to be a criminal. When authority has betrayed us, the patriot must bear the stigma of traitor. I choose to be a criminal precisely because I will have no part in my country’s crimes. I choose to be called a traitor to a land which day after day betrays the best hopes of man.” During his appearance at Barton Hall Berrigan spoke with The Sun, saying that he “was in the best of hands” since April 9, when he was supposed to report for incarceration. He had been “just reading and walking and meditating, just really enjoying everything.” Very confident words for someone on the run from the FBI. Berrigan was rumored to be staying with his friend William Stringfellow, a theologian and lawyer. “We think he spent time hiding out on Block Island, Rhode Island, with an Episcopal layperson Bill Stringfellow, who counseled him on his legal options,” Brewster said. Berrigan was eventually apprehended by the FBI and served two years in prison. He was released in 1972. As the Vietnam War came to a close Berrigan and his brother Philip directed their nonviolent protests in a different direction, this time against the manufacture of nuclear weapon components, which the Berrigans considered preparation for war. On Sept. 9, 1980, the brothers, along with six friends, broke in to the General Electric Nuclear Missile Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, Penn., where nose cones for nuclear missiles were made. The eight protesters hammered on the nose cones and poured blood over documents in imitation of the Bible, where in the book of Isaiah people are told to “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” This verse has been used by activists for peace all over the world. The Plowshares Eight, as they were later dubbed, sparked a nationwide Plowshares movement that Berrigan continued to be involved in. Since his Vietnam War protests, Berrigan has continued to speak out on many issues. He has been an outspoken critic of the first Gulf War, the Kosovo War of 1991, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the most recent invasion of Iraq. Though his time in Ithaca was short-lived, Berrigan has been back to Cornell on many occasions to speak and protest. Most recently he spoke at Barnes Hall in 2003 at a tribute to the late Rev. Jack Lewis, the man who brought Berrigan to Cornell. Berrigan also gave a sermon at Sage Chapel later that year. Born in 1921, Berrigan will be 84 years old this year. He has lived in the same Jesuit community apartment complex on 98th Street in Manhattan for the past 30 years. He has written over 50 books of prose and poetry, including a play called The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, which ran on Broadway and was later made into a movie, and his 1987 autobiography To Dwell in Peace. Berrigan suffered the loss of his brother Philip to liver and kidney cancer in 2002, what he describes as the “lowest of lows” in his lifetime, according to an interview with Jonah House, a Jesuit community that Philip founded in 1973. His brother’s death hasn’t stopped Berrigan’s quest for peace, though, as he was last arrested at the age of 82 in an anti-war protest at the USS Intrepid War Museum in New York City. Berrigan himself is perhaps best suited to sum up his motivations and his life’s work. The farewell paragraph of the statement Berri
By November 10, 2005
Before traveling to Boston to take on arch-rival Hahvahd, men’s hockey senior co-captain Matt Moulson tried to sneak a few wristers past Sun Senior Writer Per Ostman. 1. How happy are you now that the NHL is back in business? Oh, very happy. I finally have something to watch on TV again. Obviously, it’s good from a hockey standpoint. The league looked pretty bad there for a couple months – it looked like they weren’t going to get anything done. But it’s nice to see that there’ll be some jobs opening up. You’re from Ontario. Explain to the kids who aren’t from Boston, New York, Chicago, or Detroit just how popular hockey is up north. It’s just as important as you think. There are all those stereotypical comments, that all we have in Canada are lumberjacks and hockey players. I think there are some curlers running around up there, too. Haha. Yeah, and some curlers. But everyone loves hockey in Canada. I don’t know many people that didn’t play it at a young age. Everyone gets into it; it’s the thing to do. There’s nothing better than Saturday night – Hockey Night in Canada. Wayne Gretzky really is a god, isn’t he? Oh yeah. 2. Do you like the new NHL rule changes? Yeah, actually. I originally thought that I wouldn’t because I was against the shootout. But now, I find myself cheering for a tie every time. It’s exciting, isn’t it? Oh, it’s one of the most exciting things I’ve seen! I honestly didn’t want them to change it. I thought it would wreck the game, but now that I can watch hockey every day, I want to see it every time. Except when the Leafs play. I want them to win. What about the other rules? I think the tighter penalties are opening up the game a lot, especially offensively. And the two-line passing – I don’t know why they didn’t allow that earlier. That was always the issue. Scoring is up now, the game flows better, and the TV ratings are climbing. Yeah, and you get teams like the Ottawa Senators scoring eight or ten goals a game. Didn’t they crush Buffalo by some ridiculous margin last week? Something like 10-2? Yeah, it was 10-4. We’re seeing outrageous scores, like 8-1, 6-4, 10-0. Do you think that these new rules and the added scoring are ultimately good for the league? I think they still have some work to do, especially in creating loyalty with the American fans. Most of the teams are in the U.S., obviously. It’s a good start and it’s very exciting, but I think they can do more with marketing and things like that. Especially with the small-market teams. Would you like to see these new rules trickle down into the college game? I think it would be a good idea. I think the whole OHL [Ontario Hockey League] has switched to the NHL rules. All of the major junior leagues have switched. It makes the transition to the NHL that much easier, and that’s where all of us eventually want to play. I think they’ll slowly implement the new stuff into the college game. 3. Fighting is still illegal is college hockey. Should they change this? It’s part of the game everywhere else. I think they should. Especially this year, you see a lot of scrums after the whistle and stuff. Every whistle in front of the net, there are guys pushing and shoving. It slows the game down. They’ve cut down on it recently, but usually what happens if you can’t fight is a lot more stickwork – slashing and hooking. I think it would be exciting to have a few fights in front of the Lynah crowd. Oh, they’d love it. They’d riot. The roof would blow off. I don’t know, I mean the college game is pretty good, but – Let’s be clear, though. This isn’t a goon kind of thing. It’s not about goonery. We’re not talking about Tie Domi sucker-punching Gretzky. It’s part of the game. When I watch hockey, I want to see some goals, some nice plays, and some fights. I think other players like to see them, too. It would cut down on those stupid scrums if the guys could just fight and get it over with. Maybe we could have a one-fight rule, or something. Have you ever wanted to drop the gloves while playing here at Cornell? Hahaha, probably a couple of times. Any names you want to drop? I can’t really think of any names. There have been a couple times when a guy has given me a cheap shot or something like that, and I felt like going after him. But you have to just suck it up. Could you have taken him? I’d like to think so, but the guys on the team would probably disagree. [Laughter] Yeah, I could have taken him. Maybe I need to start out with some smaller guys to get my confidence up. Yeah, with bullying, you want to start slow and work into it. How much harder is it to throw a punch on skates than on foot? It’s a little harder. I’ve been in lacrosse fights, and it’s different. You have to have a lot better balance, and the other guy’s tugging on your sweater to try to pull you down. 4. You mentioned that you’re happy about jobs opening up in the NHL. You were drafted in the ninth round by the Penguins in 2003. Why did you stay in school? Haha, well I didn’t really have an offer then. Ah, so that made the decision pretty easy. I suppose I technically could have come out. So you only stayed because there wasn’t a solid offer? I don’t want to say that, exactly. I mean, I came to Cornell to get a good education and win a national championship. And I didn’t have either at that point. Wow, Cornell must love you. “I want to get a good education and win a national title, in that order.” You’re the poster boy. Do you think you can have success in the NHL? I think I still have a lot of work to do, but I continue to work on the things I need to work on, I think I can play at that level. I think you just set the record for using “work” in a sentence. Hopefully, I’ll be able to win a Stanley Cup with Sidney in Pittsburgh. Do you know Sidney Crosby? No. But I’m talking about him like we’re best friends! You know, me and Sid. So, it definitely looks like you’ll be playing for the Penguins if this happens? Well, the way it works is that you have to sign a contract by August 15th after your senior year, or you become a free agent, so that’s actually really good for the college guys. But anything can happen. You never know. What NHL player is your game patterned after? I don’t really know. I’ve got a couple of favorite players out there. Joe Sakic and Markus Naslund. You kind of look like Joe Sakic. Yeah, I’ve gotten that before, actually. But I’m not sure who I’m like – guys that score a lot, have a good shot. I love the modesty. I wouldn’t compare myself to those guys, but they’re definitely who I try to be like. 5. Explain to me once and for all why it’s a hockey “sweater” and not a hockey “jersey.” It’s both. Both? Forgive me, I’m American. You’re going to have to explain this. That’s a good question. I don’t really know. What do you mean, you don’t know? Aren’t you from Canada? Don’t they tell you how to answer dumb hockey questions from Americans? I don’t know! The only thing I can think of is – Since there’s ice and it’s cold, it’s a sweater? That could be. Maybe it’s because you’re out there, playing on the pond. You know, wearing a sweater. I remember all the kids would wear the sweaters to school, you know, just around. So it was just like a regular piece of clothing. I had a Gretzky sweater that I wore everywhere. The Edmonton one, right? No, actually it was the Kings. Are you kidding? They’re not going to let you back into the country. No, I had the Edmonton one, too. You really had the Kings? Barry Melrose and his mullet, flowing in the wind? Yeah, it’s good stuff. 6. You guys travel to Boston this weekend to pla[email protected] article by Per Ostman