Justice Archives - KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show · Burt Cohen

Ministry of Risk is it’s Own Reward

·59 min·2 clips
He evolved from soldier to scholar, priest to political prisoner, from wanting to fight Hitler to spending 11 years in prison for nonviolent resistance.
Keeping Democracy Alive podcast featuring Brad Wolf discussing his new book A Ministry of Risk: Philip Berrigan's Writings on Peace and Nonviolence. Berrigan's biography traces moral evolution from enthusiastic WWII soldier to imprisoned peace activist and prophetic witness against American militarism. Key turning point came witnessing brutality in WWII and later through Cuban Missile Crisis revelation that systemic oppression (racism, militarism, materialism) was interconnected. Pioneered innovative nonviolent resistance tactics (Baltimore Four draft board raid 1967, Catonsville Nine 1968) that destroyed draft files preventing conscription. Concept of being 'brutalized by affluence' explores how American comfort numbs us to global suffering. Spent 11 years in prison for nonviolent actions, remaining committed until death from cancer in 2002.

As heard by us

A clear-eyed look at dissent, memory, and the price of refusing obedience.

Reverend Philip Berrigan comes through as a man of hard conviction, the kind of figure who treated protest as witness and accepted prison as part of the price.

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Why you'd press play

You want a story of protest that treats risk as conviction, not spectacle.

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