Philip Francis “Phil” Berrigan SSJ (October 5, 1923 – December 6, 2002) was an American peace activist and Catholic priest[1][2][3] with the Josephites.

His father, Tom Berrigan, was a second-generation Irish-Catholic, trade union member, socialist, and railway engineer.

In 1943, after a semester of schooling at St. Michael's College, Toronto, Berrigan was drafted into combat duty in World War II.

He was also incurably secular; he saw the Church as one resource, bringing to bear on the squalid facts of racism the light of the Gospel, the presence of inventive courage and hope.

As a priest, his activism and arrests met with deep disapproval from the leadership of the Catholic Church and Berrigan was moved to Epiphany Apostolic College, the Josephite minor seminary in Newburgh, New York, but he continued his protests.

Performing a sacrificial, blood-pouring protest, they used their own blood and that from poultry and poured it over selective service (draft) records.

[5][11] Berrigan, in a written statement, noted that his sacrificial and constructive act was meant to protest "the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina".

[4] The trial of the four defendants was postponed due to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the subsequent riots in Baltimore and other U.S. cities.

[11][14] Berrigan was convicted of conspiracy and destruction of government property on November 8, 1968, but was bailed for 16 months while the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

[11][14][16] Berrigan attracted the notice of federal authorities again when he and six other anti-war activists were caught trading letters alluding to kidnapping Henry Kissinger and bombing steam tunnels.

[23] Berrigan likewise supported the Harrisburg Seven, whose plan was to put people in the government like Henry Kissinger under citizens arrest for the waging of an illegal war.

On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Daniel, with Sister Anne Montgomery RSCJ, Elmer H. Maas, Rev.

Carl Kabat, O.M.I., John Schuchardt, Dean Hammer and Molly Rush[28] known as the Plowshares Eight entered the General Electric Re-entry Division[29] in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where Mark 12A reentry vehicles[30] for the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were made.

[31] On April 10, 1990, after nearly ten years of trials and appeals, the Plowshares Eight were re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 months in consideration of time already served in prison.

[6][11] The story is partly told in the book ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance, published in 2024.

[32] Berrigan's last Plowshares action occurred in December 1999, when a group of protesters hammered on A-10 Warthog warplanes held at the Warfield Air National Guard Base.

[4][33] In one of his last public statements, Berrigan said, The American people are, more and more, making their voices heard against Bush and his warrior clones.

The American people can stop Bush, can yank his feet closer to the fire, can banish the war makers from Washington D.C., can turn this society around and restore it to faith and sanity.

[5]On December 6, 2002, Philip Berrigan died of liver and kidney cancer at the age of 79 at Jonah House in Baltimore.

Berrigan's widow, Elizabeth McAlister, and others still maintain Jonah House in Baltimore and a website that details all Plowshares activities.

[4][34] His four brothers, Daniel, John, Jim, and Jerome; his wife, Elizabeth McAlister; and their three children, Frida, Jerry, and Kate, are or were all also activists in the peace movement.