Because of his activism, Thomas was fired from his job on the railroad when his children were young. The family moved to a farm near Syracuse, New York, where Thomas co-founded the Syracuse local of the Electrical Workers Union and the Syracuse chapter of the Catholic Interracial Council. The children attended a Catholic school and worked on the family farm. The Berrigans, despite being poor themselves, provided food and shelter to needy people during the Great Depression (the worst economic crisis ever to hit the United States, from 1929 through the late 1930s).
In 1939 Daniel enrolled in Woodstock College. Upon graduation he entered the Jesuit school of theology at Weston, Massachusetts, and began a twelve-year course of intense spiritual and intellectual training. (The Jesuits, or Society of Jesus, are a religious order in the Roman Catholic Church.) He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1952.
Philip played semiprofessional baseball and worked as a janitor on trains after high school. He then spent one semester St. Michael’s College in Toronto, Canada, before being drafted into the U.S.
This is a free page. This page contains 181 words. This
article contains 2,153 words (approx. 7 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Daniel J. Berrigan Access Pass.
