Dan Berrigan spoke truth and acted on it. I just finished reading AT PLAY IN THE LIONS' DEN -- A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan, by Jim Forest (Orbis, 2017), and want to resume this blog, after its month's siesta, with several reflections on Dan. Today, just a few pungent words from the press release Dan Berrigan and 8 friends wrote to explain their action of burning draft files.
On May 17, 1968, Berrigan and 8 others entered an office where draft records of men conscripted for the war on Vietnam were stored, carried out armfuls of them, and burned them in the parking lot. Why did they do this? Was this "destruction of property" justified? Let the following excerpt from their explanation inform your thinking.
"Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house. We could not, so help us God, do otherwise."
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