Inversion of Tradition

The Dark Night of Resistance By Daniel Berrigan Doubleday, 181 pp., $5.95 In the fourth century, in North Africa, there existed a strange sect called the Circumcellions, who believed that salvation came primarily by martyrdom. Roaming the woods and highways, they would stop travelers and invite them to beat their brains in. If the accosted ones refused, the Circumcellions would beat their brains in, salvation being a good thing. The spirit of the Circumcellions has not died: witness Father Daniel Berrigan’s latest.

It was written, so the publisher tells us, between the time that Father Dan was released on bail following the Catonsville trial, and the time when the Feds caught up with him. One does not expect too coherent a structure from someone who is “resisting arrest,” but even with that allowance one can only ask: How did a professed disciple of Ignatius Loyola get this way?

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Sheldon Moody Smith

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The Dark Night of Resistance By Daniel Berrigan Doubleday, 181 pp., $5.95 In the fourth century, in North Africa, there existed a strange sect called the Circumcellions, who believed that salvation came primarily by martyrdom. Roaming the woods and highways, they would stop travelers and invite them to beat their brains in. If the accosted ones refused, the Circumcellions would beat their brains in, salvation being a good thing. The spirit of the Circumcellions has not died: witness Father Daniel Berrigan’s latest.

It was written, so the publisher tells us, between the time that Father Dan was released on bail following the Catonsville trial, and the time when the Feds caught up with him. One does not expect too coherent a structure from someone who is “resisting arrest,” but even with that allowance one can only ask: How did a professed disciple of Ignatius Loyola get this way?