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Abstract
This article examines the unorthodox criminology of Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister. First, in a biographical sketch, we present the theology, legal thought, and criminal acts of resistance of these ‘holy outlaws.’ Second, we offer some criminological reflections on the prophetic criminality of Berrigan and McAlister. Four critical issues are discussed: (1) Berrigan and McAlister’s challenge to the conventional definition of crime; (2) their identification of the problem of state crime; (3) the criminalization of their resistance to state crimes such as the Vietnam War and the religion of nuclearism; and (4) how the prophetic criminality of Berrigan and McAlister challenges professional criminologists to engage in peaceful practice and create what has come to be known as a ‘public criminology.’
Notes
1. It is really only for the sake of tidiness that my uncle, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, is not profiled here as well. He and my father would never have become who they became without each other. He participated, along with my father, in the two seminal nonviolent resistance actions described here (the Catonsville Nine and the Plowshares Eight) and he has appreciated and supported the work of the Jonah House community year in and year out. His 70 or so books of theology, poetry, and social critique have guided three generations (and counting) of nonviolent activists. His writings quoted here are intended to carry the same weight as anything written or said by my parents.
2. The Catholic Worker movement is a radical Christian movement founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in New York in 1933. It is a loose, anarchistic network of communities, houses of hospitality emphasizing the works of mercy, service of the poor, and nonviolence as Gospel imperatives. My Berrigan grandparents subscribed to The Catholic Worker newspaper when Dad and Uncle Dan were young; later, Dorothy Day would become a dear friend, mentor, and sometimes critic. She modeled and advocated the Christian freedom and duty to serve and to offer prophetic critique of society. At present, I am in the process, with three friends and our three children, of establishing a Catholic Worker community in Kalamazoo, MI (see http://www.catholicworker.org).
3. In his autobiography Philip notes:
I had lengthy discussions with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and corresponded with Secretary McNamara; also, Walt Rostow, President Johnson’s foreign policy advisor. I conferred with Senator Fulbright, with numerous Congressmen, State and Defense Department officials. I debated experts from the great universities. I pursued all constitutional channels; I believed in the system. I believed that peace … would come. But I changed, as people must change, under stress of conscience and event. [Christ, Thoreau, Gandhi, King, and Muste] all emphasized obedience to the higher Law of God. They called for, and did, non‐violent resistance to government; not as conspiracy or subversion, but to assert the democratic ideal of government of, by, and for the people. (Berrigan, Citation1996, p. 133–134)
4. We also note that symbolic protest has deep roots in the sacramental Catholic faith. A sacrament can be understood as a ritual in which the divine enters our world in a healing and purifying way. Most important is the Eucharist, in which Christ enters our bodies physically through the transubstantiated symbols of bread and wine. We leave the altar purified, renewed, filled with Christ’s spirit, empowered and inspired to be a Christlike presence in the world. Symbolic protest, resonating deeply with the national Catholic audience, brought sacramental faith to the places most in need of divine purification: centers of government and industry associated with warmaking.
5. My sister Frida met my brother‐in‐law, Ian Marvy, at college. Ian, from Minneapolis, MN, is the son of Doug Marvy of the Milwaukee Fourteen draft board action, an old family friend. Small world.
6. The B‐52 has long been a workhorse of American military might. A massive, heavy bomber, the B‐52 flew thousands of sorties over Vietnam and was for many years a forward nuclear platform vis‐à‐vis the Soviet Union. Planes were literally always patrolling the edges of Soviet territory, with fully armed nuclear warheads in load. If the order came the planes would dive into Soviet airspace and deliver the bombs. (This scenario is played out in the great Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb). At the time of the action, the B‐52s on patrol out of Griffiss were armed with nuclear‐tipped cruise missiles. The plane in question was down for maintenance and was not armed with nuclear weapons at the time.
7. Covenant: a formal, solemn, and binding agreement, pledge, compact, or contract (Webster’s New Seventh Collegiate Dictionary, Citation1972).
8. Not to be confused with the conduct of many American Christians, mind you, whose values are directly in line with those of America – who testify not to the Jesus of the Gospels but to ‘the Jesus of Suburbia,’ to borrow Green Day’s line.
9. Stringfellow, a close family friend and lawyer, opened a legal clinic in Harlem upon graduation from Harvard Law School in 1956. His experiences living and working with African Americans in this time inspired a prophetic assessment of the so‐called ‘racial question,’ in a book entitled My People is the Enemy (Citation1964). A lay Protestant theologian, Stringfellow published 16 books of theological study, including the great Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (Citation1973). I recommend Bill Wylie‐Kellerman’s (Citation1994) overview of Stringfellow’s work.
10.
Death is the moral significance that a principality proffers human beings. That is to say, whatever intrinsic moral power is embodied in a principality – for a great corporation, profit; for a nation, hegemony; for an ideology, conformity – that sooner or later is superseded by the greater moral power of death. Corporations die. Nations die. Ideologies die. Death survives them all. The real idol secreted within all idolatries, the power above all principalities and powers, the idol of idols – is death. To many humans, and, as it were, to themselves, the nations and institutions and assorted principalities may seem to be glorious, autonomous, or everlasting powers, but in fact they are themselves vassals or serfs, acolytes or surrogates, apparitions or agents of death. (Wylie‐Kellerman, Citation1994, p. 208)
11. The institutional principalities make claims upon human beings in that the moral principle that governs any institution … is its own survival. Everything else must finally be sacrificed to the cause of preserving the institution, and it is demanded of everyone within its sphere of influence – officers, executives, employees, members, customers and students – that they commit themselves to the service of that end. This relentless demand … is often presented in benign forms to a person … but that does not make the demand any less dehumanizing. In the end, the claim for service that an institution makes upon human beings is an invitation to surrender their lives in order that the institution be preserved and prosper. It is an invitation to bondage. (Wylie‐Kellerman, Citation1994, p.196)
12. In justifications, defendants admit responsibility but maintain that under the circumstances what they did was right. Necessity justifies otherwise criminal conduct (a lesser evil) when it avoids a greater imminent evil.
13. Co‐author Ron Kramer attributes his own personal antiwar stance and concern about the violent crimes of the powerful to the strong influence of Philip and Daniel Berrigan’s acts of civil disobedience, which were discussed in his Ohio Catholic High School in the late 1960s.