Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
with my friend, Frida Berrigan. This podcast
is a project of www .beatitudecenter .org, where
you can find many other podcasts and regular
Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and
practicing nonviolence and working for a more
just, more nonviolent world. So I always like
to begin with a little prayer. So I invite everybody
listening, wherever you are, to just take a deep
breath and just to relax and recenter yourself.
And let's together enter into the presence of
the God of peace who loves you infinitely and
personally and everyone everywhere. And let's
welcome the nonviolent Jesus here with us. And
ask for whatever grace you need to follow him
more faithfully and do God's will of peace. God
of peace, thank you for all the blessings of
life, love, and peace that you give us. Be with
us now as we reflect together on your call to
follow the nonviolent Jesus, to go forth and
make peace in this world of war. Bless us, inspire
us, disarm us, heal us, strengthen us, and send
us out to do your will, to do our part to help
end poverty, racism, greed, injustice, war, nuclear
weapons, and environmental destruction, that
we might be your beatitude people, your holy
peacemakers who welcome your reign of universal
love, nonviolence, and peace on earth. In Jesus'
name, amen. It's a great pleasure to welcome
my friend Frida Berrigan, an American peace activist
and author. In 2015, she published her first
book, It Runs in the Family, on being raised
by radicals and growing into a rebellious motherhood,
about her life growing up in the Berrigan family
and at Jonah House, a community of permanent
nonviolent resistance to war and nuclear weapons.
in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father was Philip
Berrigan and her mother is Elizabeth McAllister,
longtime friends of mine. She is featured in
the 2021 documentary, The Berrigans, Devout and
Dangerous. Frida went to Hampshire College and
was an intern at The Nation and worked for years
at the World Policy Institute studying U .S.
military policy and nuclear weapons. She co -founded
Witness Against Torture. campaign calling for
the closure of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center
and the end of U .S.-backed use of torture. She
lives with her family in New London, Connecticut,
where Frida ran for mayor for the Green Party.
Welcome, Frida. Thank you so much for being with
me today. What a grace. What a delight to spend
this time with you, John. Thanks. Well, we're
going to jump right into it, Frida. So this August
6th marks the 80th anniversary of the U .S. atomic
bombing of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. And the
doomsday clock says we're closer to nuclear war
than ever, as the world seems to be descending
deeper into darkness by the minute. And you grew
up with a family full -time working against nuclear
war, and you've studied it and written very well
about it. like your whole life. So I wonder if
we could begin there and if you could just reflect
with me, with us and our listeners about the
threat of nuclear war today and what people can
do. And you can take that any which way you want.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that question. You
know, as the 80th anniversary of the bombing
of Hiroshima approaches in this year of 2025
with the, you know, with the... The character
of Donald Trump with his finger on the nuclear
button and the bulletin of the atomic scientists
saying that we're 89 seconds to nuclear midnight.
And of course, we're seeing two nuclear armed
nations, India and Pakistan, you know, right,
right on the edge of war again. And Israel's
bombardment and another nuclear armed states
bombardment of Gaza. You know, the. kind of issues
that I grew up immersed in of nuclear weapons
and nuclear aggression and the threat of, you
know, the destruction of the whole world have
never been more immediate and more prescient
and more in need of our response and our response,
particularly as Americans, as U .S. citizens.
as beneficiaries of the nuclear hegemony that
the United States has experienced since 1945
and undergirds our economic power and our cultural
power and our conventional military power throughout
the world. So I'm particularly mindful that the
voices that have called so consistently and so
beautifully and so... persistently for nuclear
disarmament are those who experienced the bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Habakusha. And
those voices are, you know, they're... they're
dying out, they're weakening as, you know, as
the years pass. And the organization founded
to help their voices, you know, be as loud as
possible, won the Nobel Peace Prize last year,
Nihon Heidankyo. And it really was a passing
of the torch and passing of the torch onto us.
And so, you know, I think one thing that we can
all be doing is remembering our history, right?
That the peace movement, the anti -nuclear movement
here in the United States and throughout the
world, you know, we're kind of responsible for
saving the planet, right? Like we won, we won.
And being anti -nuclear was a cultural badge
of honor, you know, in the 1970s, in the 1980s,
going back to the 1950s, there was this. broad
-based, intersectional, massive international
movement for nuclear disarmament, for nuclear
abolition. And mining that history is so inspiring
and so motivating. And and the Times call for
us to be, you know, on on the on the streets
for every issue under the sun, including including
nuclear abolition. And I think we can we can
do that. And and before, you know. beautiful
immigration -welcoming community and money for
our schools and everything else that people want
can be encompassed by, can be undergirded by
an anti -nuclear. call. So this anniversary is
particularly important because it's the 80th,
because we need to be speaking in the voice of
the Habakkusha and reading those testimonies,
knowing them by heart, and continuing to say,
never again, nuclear weapons, never again. Oh,
Frida, that's so beautiful. Thanks so much. And
I guess I hadn't really thought of it that way,
that you're saying, hey, you know, our ancestors
in the movement did a good job, the 50s and the
60s and the 70s in your own family. And look
how faithful the Habakkusha were. And we need
to stand up to the plate today in this really
bad moment and bad time. do what we can and trust
that we can play a good part too, right? Yeah.
Great. Yes, yes. So you got arrested on Ash Wednesday,
Frida, in March in New York with our friends
in nonviolent civil disobedience at the United
Nations calling for nuclear disarmament. Tell
me about the action, what you called for, and,
you know, in detail, what actually happened.
Yeah. So this is an action on Ash Wednesday.
We were blessed by Archbishop John Wester of
Santa Fe, that great, you know, prophetic anti
-nuclear. you know, voice there in the nuclear
heartland of the United States. And we were there
during the UN meetings around the Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. And for those
of your listeners who don't know, the Treaty
on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is international
law. It says that nuclear weapons... should not
be possessed. They should not be worked on. They
should not be produced. They should not be traded.
They should not be threatened. They certainly
shouldn't be used by any nation state in the
world community. And 95 nation states, I think
89 nation states have signed on to this treaty.
It became international law when 70 nations had
signed on to it, which happened in 2022 in January.
And and so that is that is the law. And and it
was a really exciting grassroots global South
led. process that skirted and worked around the
block that the nuclear weapons states, the five
permanent members of the Security Council have.
And so it was very smart and savvy organizing
work that ICANN and other organizations. And,
you know, they won the Nobel Peace Prize for
that work back in 2017. Anyway, so these meetings
were happening at the United Nations. It was
Ash Wednesday. And the United States, the one,
you know, the user of nuclear weapons, the, you
know, that killed. 240 ,000 people in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in 1945, a nuclear proliferator.
We spend billions of dollars on nuclear weapons
and nuclear delivery vehicles every year. The
United States wasn't going to participate in
these meetings at all, even as an observer. And
so the conceit behind our action was that You
know, this was such an emergency. This was so
important for the United States to be involved,
to hear the voices of those most affected by
nuclear weapons testing and the mining of nuclear
material, and to hear the voices that are calling
for nuclear disarmament, that we would block
traffic on First Avenue. between the United States
mission to the United Nations and the United
Nations itself. And we would call that delegation
out of their fancy offices and insist that they
participate in this international process. And
so there were dozens and dozens of us. And as
I said, Archbishop John Wester blessed us all
with ashes. I had personally been on the fence
about participating in the action. I needed to
get back to my kids. I wanted to catch the train.
Life was infiltrating and reminding me that it
is inconvenient to get arrested and scary and
all of this kind of stuff. But with Archbishop
John Wester's ashes on my forehead, I really
felt like I felt. commended into the street.
I just followed my friends with these huge banners
that said, you know, nuclear abolition is international
law and the United States needs to participate
and lead the way for nuclear disarmament, messages
like that. And we blocked traffic on First Avenue.
And I really felt all of my All of my, you know,
anxiety about the Trump administration and my
worry about the future and my angst about like
what's everything that's happening, you know,
from the climate crisis to, you know, Trump being,
you know, in charge of nuclear weapons. I just
for that one moment or that 10 minutes or, you
know, that we were in the middle of the street,
I felt it all kind of recede. Right. Like it
just felt so good to be. Doing something and
doing something in community with other people
and and disrupting the normal operations of things,
the way in which we're all encouraged to just
kind of just go through the motions of life as
opposed to like really living our lives. And
and so our action was an interruption of, you
know, life as as normal there. uh on on first
avenue at the united nations and you know there
were all these you know people on the inside
participating in these meetings who were so heartened
um that we were outside and you know calling
our government to account right and so um so
i felt this real affinity with um the advocates
and the you know kind of the arms control um
you know, class, you know, like the institutional
kind of, um, anti -nuclear people, um, you know,
felt their gratitude and their, uh, connection,
um, to, uh, our action, um, really, really keenly
and, you know, and then spent, you know, the
afternoon in a holding cell under the, uh, Williamsburg
bridge, uh, with a lot of friends and, um, and,
uh, and that was kind of, that was kind of it.
Wow. Thank you. That sounds wonderful. Next time
you do it, call me. I want to come and get arrested
with you. I hope everybody knows just two footnotes
about all that, about the International Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which won the Nobel
Peace Prize. That was co -founded by Ira Helfand.
who's on their board. He also was founder of
Physicians for Social Responsibility, which also
won the Nobel Peace Prize. He's going to be on
this podcast in a few weeks. How wonderful. Yeah,
he's a good friend. And Archbishop John Wester
called me yesterday. He's going to Hiroshima
and he's taking a bunch of the cardinals who
were just in Rome with him. Isn't that wonderful?
Because he's building all this bridge building
with U .S. cardinals and bishops with the whole
Bishops' Conference of Japan. This has never
happened before. And it's so encouraging for
the Japanese people. And I'm not able to go with
him, but he'll be on this podcast when he gets
back. So that's exciting. Well, it's all very
hopeful. And, you know, Frida, Martin Sheen and
I were invited to come over and give the keynote
opening speech when they were launching ICANN
in Norway. And I don't know if I ever told you
about that, Frida, but we're meeting everybody,
thousands. That's where I met Ira. And they're
all saying, yeah, we got rid of landmines with
Princess Diana. I'm going, uh -huh. And then
they're going, we're the people who then got
rid of cluster bombs. And I'm going, uh -huh.
So now we're going to get rid of nuclear weapons.
And Martin and I are looking at each other like,
well, good luck with that. And to a person, Frida,
these were people from around the planet. Full
-time anti -nuclear activists, but doctors and
lawyers. They were saying, no, this is how it's
going to happen. And it's going to take 15 years.
Everything they said 15 years ago is... Coming
true, Frida. Yeah, yeah. Right on track with
the ban treaty at the UN. And it's amazing to
watch. I think it's actually the most hopeful
thing happening on the planet. Do you find hope
in ICANN? No, really, what they're doing is amazing.
Yeah, yeah, I really do. I really do. And not
enough people know about it, you know, Frida?
The ban treaty itself and how they're... These
good people are really chipping away to widen
the law. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we hold signs every
year on the anniversary of the treaty in front
of Electric Boat General Dynamics, which builds
the delivery system for nuclear weapons. They
build the submarines. And we have these beautiful
signs that say thank you to Tuvalu and to Peru
and Namibia and country after country after country.
These beautiful, colorful signs. And we stand
in the freezing, frigid cold. And every year
we make a couple more signs. our line of signs
gets a little longer. And anyway, we started
doing that when the treaty came into, you know,
came into international law in 2022. That's great.
We do that out here in the West Coast at Vandenberg,
but we don't have thank you signs for the nations.
We'll have to do that. Hey, so tell me what you
did in Holy Week. After you got out of jail,
then you went on a, was it a disarmament peace
march? Yep. Yep, we went on a disarmament peace
march. It was our Holy Week pilgrimage for nuclear
abolition. And I organized this with friends
in the Atlantic Life community and our little
committee here in New London, Connecticut, the
Committee for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
And there were about... 12 to 25 of us walking
the shoreline of Connecticut from New Haven,
where we were on Palm Sunday, to the U .S. Naval
Base on Good Friday. Which new U .S. Naval Base?
The one here in New London Grot. Okay, so you
walked along the coast of Connecticut going east
to the Trident Submarines. Yeah, that's right.
And each day we, you know, we walked. 10 to 15
miles and ate a lot of sandwiches and had these
beautiful signs that were made by Jackie Allen,
a Catholic worker from Hartford, Connecticut.
And somebody from the L .A. Catholic worker,
a guy named Dimitri, made these beautiful murals.
And so we had these great flags and banners.
And we invited people to join us for as much
time as they could. But there was a core group
of us, about a dozen. of us who walked pretty
much the whole way. And then on Holy Thursday,
at the gates of General Dynamics electric boat
here in New London, we blocked the entrance and
we did a feet washing. ritual there. And seven
of us were arrested there on Holy Thursday. And
so every day we also vigiled, you know, all of
these little cute towns on the shoreline have
beautiful greens and, you know, busy little downtown
areas. And so we had about an hour or two hours
of vigiling and outreach, connecting with communities
along the way, inviting them to join us and distributing
literature. about nuclear weapons and being hosted
by a wide swath of religious congregations. We
were hosted by Methodists and Quakers and Unitarian
Universalists and Catholics. And so it was really
wonderful, I have to say. United Methodist Church
on Sunday, and we were commissioned out from
this great congregation, a small congregation
in New Haven. And a woman said to me, it was
a very, very moving service led by a young woman
pastor. A woman said, aren't you scared? This
is a terrible time to be walking along the side
of the road and having this radical message of
nuclear disarmament. Aren't you terrified? I
would be terrified. And I said, well, I wasn't
thinking about that until you just asked me that
question. Thank you. But I'm really, I'm not.
And then, of course, I was a little bit. 85 %
of people's responses to us was very, very positive.
And we had people stop and cry and embrace us
and express gratitude and people honking at us
all the time, toot toots, happy honks. But then,
you know, we took a break at Tractor Supply and
Guilford and they called the police on us and
had us move along, you know, so we did have some
bumps along the road. but nothing too major.
And most people who we interacted with, even
these peace activists along the way and progressive
people who had been turning out with Indivisible
and this 50 -51, kind of all this anti -Trump
stuff, even these good, well -educated, well
-informed people really hadn't been thinking
about nuclear weapons, right? It's just not on
people's... radar screens um it's not on people's
hearts and um and so a big part of what we were
really doing was reminding people that nuclear
weapons are still here like and that they're
still threatening uh the planet and um and that
they're not going to disarm themselves right
they're just they're not going to they're not
going to do that and that we need to to do that.
And so it was, it was a great week. And my kids
joined me for a bunch of it. Of course, it was
their spring break. And we, yeah, so we all slept
on the floor in this great peace community called
Benincasa in Guilford, Connecticut, and with
the chickens and we slept in their barn. It was
a really wonderful experience. Thank you, Frida.
As you're listening, friends, this is what I
wanted to have Frida on, just to hear the life,
the ordinary life of a full -time committed anti
-nuclear activist. This is Frida's life. And
this is what I think following the nonviolent
Jesus looks like. Frida, you grew up in a house
of resistors and peace activists in Baltimore.
And you've had the most amazing life, I think,
of anybody in the country. All you all were doing
all the time was demonstrating regularly at the
Pentagon and the White House. And you met and
saw hundreds and hundreds of friends throughout
your whole life go off to jail for various acts
of civil disobedience and plowshares actions,
including me. I started visiting your parents
around 1980. It's hard to take it all in 45 years
ago. That's right. Both of your parents. I've
known you since you were just a kid. Both your
parents. spent a lot of time in prison throughout
your youth, and you've written and talked a lot
about it. And so I just would like to ask you
to reflect a little bit. I'm sure you've maybe
tired of telling all that stories, but a little
bit about what it was like for you and your brother
and sister, especially now when you look back
on it now, how it influenced you in such a positive
way and prepared you. It was all leading up to
the insanity of today's world. And I'm thinking,
you know, you've had, so friends who are listening,
this was a very hard life at Free to Live, but
so many blessings. And you could share anything
about growing up in community, which very few
have in the United States, a life of public resistance
since you were three. and what it also meant
in terms of growing in faith with the God of
peace. Yeah, okay. So I guess one of the things
that really I wanted to kind of pull out here
is just that, you know, my... My parents helped
to create this community, Jonah House, 1973,
coming out of the experiences of the Vietnam
War and the huge anti -war movement or movements
that helped end the war or helped end U .S. participation
in the war. And one of the lessons they learned,
being a little bit older than maybe the... stereotypical
anti -Vietnam War activist was that the only
way that they were going to be able to sustain
not just an anti -war movement against that war,
this specific bad thing that the government was
doing, was to live in community and to immerse
themselves in... The way of Christ and the way
of the disciples, the life of the disciples.
And so this very simple, very austere lifestyle
that we were brought up in, inspired by the Catholic
worker and Dorothy Day, but recognizing that
they didn't want to, if they did. the works of
mercy um that's kind of all they would end up
doing that was their fear and so to really allow
themselves to be free um to just do resistance
um and uh and do resistance with children also
meant community and um you know trusting you
know all of these other people to help take care
of us. And so it was really lovely and very,
very difficult. But one of the things that I
noticed very early on as a very young kid was
that all of these people were coming to this
hot, kind of dirty, crowded row house in inner
city Baltimore, and they were leaving. middle
America, right? Like they were leaving sunken
living rooms and wall -to -wall carpet and air
conditioning and, you know, food that was bought
at the grocery store instead of food that was
like rescued from dumpsters. They were leaving
all of that comfort and, you know, matching sheets
and matching dishes. They were leaving that and
coming to us. And that really, you know, as somebody
who coveted all of that, the trappings of middle
class America, that was really striking. And
that people were giving all of that up to spend
time with us was like very instructive to me
as a young kid. And that they were giving up.
maybe their relationship with their own families,
right? Like that their parents wanted them to,
you know, work in sales or, you know, get a PhD
or use their PhD within academia instead of,
you know, sleeping three guys to a room on the
floor, on the third floor of our, you know, our
tall, skinny row house, right? That the people
were leaving. families to come spend time with
us and go to jail and make holy messes at the
White House and the Pentagon on every religious
holiday all throughout the year in the blazing
sun and the bitter, bitter cold. We were just
driving down to Washington all the time. paid
very close attention to the younger people, the
younger adults who were coming to Joan House
and all they were leaving behind. And the other
thing that was really striking to me, you know,
kind of reflecting back on it and thinking now
about my own children, is that they never sugarcoated
anything for us, right? They never lied to us.
They never... told us it would all be okay. And
somebody would work it all out on our behalf.
They always kind of let it be known to us, my
brother and my sister and I, that any change
we wanted to see in the world, we had to, you
know, make ourselves. And that even if we didn't
see the change, it was still like worth doing.
And so as I grew older, You know, at that point
where, you know, kind of teenagers or young adults
are like, wait a second, like everything isn't
OK. And, you know, my parents didn't tell me
the truth. That kind of rupture moment that so
many young people have where they realize, like,
life is not going to be easy the way their family
had. told them it would be, I didn't ever have
that rupture because I had been sort of instructed
all the way along, even as like a five -year
-old, into, you know, the details of what the
consequences of the bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. We watched the documentary footage
on the wall of our living room with our 16 millimeter
projector, right? Like we watched that documentary
over and over and over again. A silent camera
moving through Hiroshima and taking in the damage
both to the infrastructure, but also, you know,
the damage to the people. Right. Like we we kind
of grew up reading people's history of the United
States, like, you know, bringing that. Howard
Zinn's like devastating book into like third
grade history class, you know, and bringing slide
shows in about world hunger and stuff like that.
And so, so we just kind of always knew that it
was, it was our responsibility to, to bear witness,
to amplify the voices and to resist, you know,
as much as possible. And And then I guess the
last thing I'll say about all of that is that,
you know, even though we were like watching the
news every night and these, you know, gruesome
documentaries about Hiroshima, we were also just
like, you know, my parents were going off to
jail all the time and there were bags of blood
in our freezer, you know, waiting for the next
action when somebody would mark, you know, the
white pillars of the Pentagon with. blood, we
were also like having a really good time and,
you know, welcoming new and interesting people,
including yourself, John, into our home and learning
from people and celebrating all the time and
having these beautiful liturgies in our front
room and all these real characters were coming
by all the time. Anyway, it was quite the life.
It was amazing. Thank you for sharing all that,
Frida. Yeah, there's nothing else like it in
the United States, and people wouldn't quite
believe it. It was not a Catholic worker. It
was full -time resistance to the culture of war.
And I'm glad you mentioned that because there
always was a lot of celebration and life. And,
you know, when you talk about everybody coming
there and giving up and then this kind of shock
of Jonah House, I think everybody else, you could
say everyone left differently and happy and consoled
because maybe the first time they experienced
community and the joy that you all had, that
celebration. So, Frida, so your parents... Philip
Berrigan, Elizabeth McAllister, and your uncle
Daniel Berrigan, my great friend, are real icons
for many, many people across the country and
the world. And as we've been talking, we're coming
on the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima. And the
three of them were just relentless, as you're
saying. Folks, it's hard to impress upon you.
They kept this as a liturgical schedule. Every
two months, you went to the Pentagon. So if it's
Pentecost, we're going to the Pentagon. If it's
Advent or Christmas, we're going to the – so
here we are on the 80th anniversary. And I was
thinking as I was getting ready to talk with
you today, I wish there would be vigils for nuclear
disarmament, calling for the abolition of nuclear
weapons. across the United States this August
6th, in every city, even if it's just ragtag
five or ten people, that we need to just all
stand up and break the silence. And I think that's
what your mom and dad and Uncle Dan would say.
What do you think, and how might we do that?
Yeah, yes, they would be 100 % there. I remember
my mom. Getting so furious one time, some niece
or nephew was getting married and it was, you
know, first Saturday in August. It was August
6th. And she got this wedding invitation and
she was like, I can't believe they would have
a wedding on August 6th, you know, and because,
you know, it's the anniversary of the bombing.
of Hiroshima and we were always at the Pentagon
and the department of energy. And, you know,
from August 5th through August 9th, we were,
you know, down in Washington and, you know, now
as an adult, I'm like, well, you know, like there
are only so many Saturdays, you know, you have
to pick one. Right. Um, so, uh, but it makes
me just smile thinking of her. She wrote this
long screed to my poor relative. We won't, we
couldn't possibly. celebrate a wedding on August
6th. We'll be thinking of you as we're getting
hauled away from the Pentagon's Riverside entrance.
So, you know, the nuclear resistor down there
in Tucson and the, what's it called? I'm forgetting
the name of the other group that's, you know,
there are a couple of National groups that could
help organize this in the same way that people
are organizing kind of call to actions around
January, you know, January anniversary of the
signing of the treaty into law. We'll be out
at General Dynamics electric boat here in New
London on that day or a nearby intersection.
Sometimes we like to go to the sub base, too,
for August 6th and August 9th. So but I think
there's a bomb maker, you know, or a weapons
manufacturer or an office park connected to the
military industrial complex and every congressional.
district here in this country. And, you know,
holding them to account for, you know, U .S.
nuclear hegemony is always a good idea. So I'm
on board, John. Sign me up. Okay, great. Well,
that's probably all the time we have. Is there
anything else you want to add before we sign
off, Rita? Have we discussed most of the major
questions for today? I think we've covered it,
John. Okay. Till next time. Well, thank you so
very much, Frida Bergen, for speaking with me
today. And thank you, friends, for listening
to this, the Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You can
hear many more podcasts and find other upcoming
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time. Thank you.