Obituary Note: Daniel Berrigan

The Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, a Jesuit priest, writer and lifelong activist "whose defiant protests helped shape the tactics of opposition to the Vietnam War and landed him in prison," died April 30, the New York Times reported. He was 94. "While he was known for his wry wit, there was a darkness in much of what Father Berrigan wrote and said, the burden of which was that one had to keep trying to do the right thing regardless of the near certainty that it would make no difference," the Times wrote.

Father Berrigan published more than 50 books, including 15 volumes of poetry, an autobiography, "social criticism, commentaries on the Old Testament prophets and indictments of the established order, both secular and ecclesiastic." Included among these are Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings, To Dwell in Peace: An Autobiography, No Gods But One, The Kings and Their Gods: The Pathology of Power, The Dark Night of Resistance, A Sunday in Hell: Fables & Poems, Prison Poems and The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.

The Times noted that Father Berrigan "also had a way of popping up in the wider culture: as the 'radical priest' in Paul Simon's song 'Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard'; as inspiration for the character Father Corrigan in Colum McCann's 2009 novel, Let the Great World Spin. He even had a small movie role, appearing as a Jesuit priest in The Mission in 1989."

While he and his late brothers Philip and Jerry were still alive, Daniel Berrigan wrote in "The Wolf and the Child":