The author with friend at a protest against the School of the Americas, ca. 1990, recalling US training of the soldiers implicated in the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador. Photo from the author’s collection
Compiled by Janice Jayes from interviews she recorded between 2018 and 2023, in which Father Tom reflected on the many experiences that expanded his vision of moral responsibilities in the decades after his 1960 ordination.
Daniel Berrigan and the Challenges of Vatican II
In 1966 I became assistant pastor at St. Mary’s near Danville, where both my real-world education and my troubles with hierarchy began. The Vatican II documents were just coming out and I joined some local Protestant pastors to study the statements on peace and justice. It was a great lesson in ecumenicalism but also a bit disappointing. Many Catholics focused more on liturgical changes than the admonition to actively engage in building a just world.
Except for the nuns, that is. My observation was, in general, if you had a group of nuns in the parish they most likely knew more about Vatican II than the priests did. In the summer the nuns went off to workshops at places like Notre Dame, where they completed degrees or just visited with friends from the mother house. Notre Dame was just a hotbed of progressive discussion then, with exciting lectures and unusual sermons. I liked visiting friends studying there, and in 1966 I heard that the Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan would be speaking on campus. Back in Danville I mentioned it to the nuns and the next thing I knew they all wanted to go. The priests I was with were not interested, but the nuns drove up with me for the talk. Continue reading
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“The rivers are the place where nature still exists.” – Bruce Hannon, 2017 interview for Prairie Rivers Network’s 50th Anniversary.
