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Divine Disobedience: Profiles in Catholic Radicalism
1971, mass market paperback reprint edition, Vintage Books, NY. 330 pages. Non-fiction title concerning religion and biography. Collection of essays which portray various Catholic voices, discussing, helping, and bringing outside voices to many problems of today and yesterday.
- GenresHistory
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 28, 1971
39 people want to read
About the author
Francine du Plessix Gray
32 books55 followersFrancine du Plessix Gray, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and literary critic, was born in Warsaw, Poland, where her father, Vicomte Bertrand Jochaud du Plessix, was a French diplomat - the commercial attaché. She spent her early years in Paris, where a milieu of mixed cultures and a multilingual family (French father and Russian émigré mother) influenced her.
Widowed when her father died in battle, in 1940 du Plessix Gray's mother escaped France to New York with Francine. In 1942, her mother married Alexander Liberman, another White émigré from Russia, whom she had known in Paris as a child. He was a noted artist and later longtime editorial director of Vogue Magazine and then of Condé Nast Publications. The Libermans were socially prominent in media, art, and fashion circles.
Francine du Plessix Gray then grew up in New York City, and was naturalized a U.S. citizen in 1952. She was a scholarship student at Spence School. She attended Bryn Mawr College for two years, and in 1952 received her B.A. in philosophy from Barnard College, NY.
In 1957 she married painter Cleve Gray (1918-2004) with whom she had two sons.
Du Plessix Gray had a long and varied career, in the 1950s as reporter for several French magazines; book editor for Art in America New York City; staff writer for The New Yorker; several professorships, including at Columbia University.
Her most well-known book is Them: A Memory of Parents (2005). Her novels included Lovers and Tyrants (1976).
Widowed when her father died in battle, in 1940 du Plessix Gray's mother escaped France to New York with Francine. In 1942, her mother married Alexander Liberman, another White émigré from Russia, whom she had known in Paris as a child. He was a noted artist and later longtime editorial director of Vogue Magazine and then of Condé Nast Publications. The Libermans were socially prominent in media, art, and fashion circles.
Francine du Plessix Gray then grew up in New York City, and was naturalized a U.S. citizen in 1952. She was a scholarship student at Spence School. She attended Bryn Mawr College for two years, and in 1952 received her B.A. in philosophy from Barnard College, NY.
In 1957 she married painter Cleve Gray (1918-2004) with whom she had two sons.
Du Plessix Gray had a long and varied career, in the 1950s as reporter for several French magazines; book editor for Art in America New York City; staff writer for The New Yorker; several professorships, including at Columbia University.
Her most well-known book is Them: A Memory of Parents (2005). Her novels included Lovers and Tyrants (1976).
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February 13, 2023
A DETAILED SURVEY OF SEVERAL PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENTS
Francine du Plessix Gray (1930-2019) was a French-American writer and literary critic. She wrote in the Introduction to this 1970 book, “This is a book about the conscience of dissent and the role it has played in shaping the destinies of several extraordinary men. Of all the forces that have forged the upheaval within the Roman Catholic Church in the past decade… one phenomenon has interested me the most: the character of those Catholics who have remained deeply dedicated to their faith while rebelling against the Church’s traditional structure and who, ibn the course of their rebellion, have also become some of the most militant critics and reformer of secular society. I have tried to explore the character of the new Catholic radical; to examine the tension in his conscience between his understanding of the Gospel and the rigidities of the institutional Church; and to consider his impact upon the secular world.”
In the first chapter, she explains, “Every few weeks at Emmaus House, a radical Catholic community in East Harlem that includes many non-Catholics, a different member of the congregation prepares the Agape, an ecumenical celebration which includes prayers, songs, readings, and the breaking of bread.” (Pg. 5) She adds, “The year Emmaus House crystallized as a vanguard of the religious New Left---1967---was a turbulent one for American Catholics… Emmaus House flourished in this turbulent atmosphere under the guidance of a nucleus of Christian laymen and priests.” (Pg. 10-11)
She states, “If the New Church had an iconography, its image of Christ would not be modeled on the passive, saccharine figure portrayed in children’s catechism books. Its cultic image would more likely be a photograph of the angry Father Berrigan going to jail in protest against racism or war. The theology of the New Church feeds with new appetite upon an old paradox: the disparity between the social radicalism of the Gospels and the Church’s resistance to social change...” (Pg. 30)
In the next chapter, she recounts that Philip Berrigan and others “had poured blood on several hundred draft records in a Selective Service office … the Catonsville Nine… [included] Fathers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, long-publicized shock troops of the Peace Movement, idols of the Catholic New Left, the Church’s most militant and prolific writers on pacifism and civil rights.” (Pg. 48)
She records, “Daniel was … transformed [in 1963-1964] by his trips to Marxist countries. He was one of the first American priests to be granted visas to Hungary, Russia, and Czechoslovakia, and these excursions shook him. He worked behind the Iron Curtain with Catholic families whose jobs, schooling, and income were constantly jeopardized by their religious practices. And he was very affected by the courage of Christians whose faith survived the duress of Marxist regimes.” (Pg. 76)
She continues, “With Philip’s first Vietnam confrontation, the Berrigans became the high priests of the Catholic peace movement, the commandoes of the new Guerrilla Christianity which… would invade the draft boards of Baltimore and Catonsville. The Berrigans’ belligerence, and the actions of the Catonsville Nine, are a strictly Catholic phenomenon. They are … also a defiance of the heavy-handed authoritarianism, the blind nationalism that makes the American Catholic community the most war-mongering segment of the nation.” (Pg. 90)
She explains, “The liturgical aspects of pouring blood on draft files pleased Philip… Daniel, whose ideas had so influenced Philip’s life, was often taken aback by the radical conclusions which his younger brother drew them to. Daniel was violently opposed to the idea of burning any property. But he approved the blood-pouring ritual, as did Thomas Merton.” (Pg. 117)
She reports, “The underground Church is a mess,’ Daniel says. ‘The underground Church is all talk and no action. Just another liberal white ghetto. What a country club.” (Pg. 138)
She suggests, “The rage of the peace movement was given a new fanaticism by these religious men. They had come not only to protest the war, but also to celebrate and mourn the incarceration of the young Church’s two greatest idols. Their passion made it plain that the sacrificial theatrics of the Catonsville Nine could only have been enacted by members of the region which still retains… the immolation of a victim to absolve the sins and ease the conscience of the tribe.” (Pg. 160)
She acknowledges, “The appearance of Philip Berrigan [at the trial] on the witness stand was the most troubling moment of the Catonsville trial. One had thought of him as indestructible; he seemed exhausted, browbeaten, unsure. It was as if the violence of prison life, which he had endured so stalwartly at first, had accumulated to fell him in a sudden blow… Jeremiah’s voice was stilled.” (Pg. 203)
She recounts, ‘As the clerk spoke her last word to legitimize the verdict passed upon the Nine, a deep and powerful man’s voice boomed out from the spectator’s gallery: ‘Members of the jury, you have just found Jesus Christ guilty!’ … four marshals rushed to the man and seized him… As they were being escorted out of the courtroom… the strains of ‘We Shall Overcome’ filled the halls… Daniel Berrigan was saying extraordinary things… ‘I think we agree that this was the greatest day of our lives.’” (Pg.
224-225)\
In the final chapter on Mendez Arceo and Ivan Illich, she summarizes, “For the Catholic progressive who still desire to keep some fidelity to the institution, the decade of the seventies promises to be one in which they will need more blind faith then ever in the Church-as-She… Their very radicalism seems to give them the courage to play the rules of the game, and to reform from the inside… Their endurance, and the capacity of any reform-minded Catholic to remain in the institutional church, will depend on the mystery of faith…” (Pg. 320-321)
This book will be of great interest to those studying progressive movements within Catholicism.
Francine du Plessix Gray (1930-2019) was a French-American writer and literary critic. She wrote in the Introduction to this 1970 book, “This is a book about the conscience of dissent and the role it has played in shaping the destinies of several extraordinary men. Of all the forces that have forged the upheaval within the Roman Catholic Church in the past decade… one phenomenon has interested me the most: the character of those Catholics who have remained deeply dedicated to their faith while rebelling against the Church’s traditional structure and who, ibn the course of their rebellion, have also become some of the most militant critics and reformer of secular society. I have tried to explore the character of the new Catholic radical; to examine the tension in his conscience between his understanding of the Gospel and the rigidities of the institutional Church; and to consider his impact upon the secular world.”
In the first chapter, she explains, “Every few weeks at Emmaus House, a radical Catholic community in East Harlem that includes many non-Catholics, a different member of the congregation prepares the Agape, an ecumenical celebration which includes prayers, songs, readings, and the breaking of bread.” (Pg. 5) She adds, “The year Emmaus House crystallized as a vanguard of the religious New Left---1967---was a turbulent one for American Catholics… Emmaus House flourished in this turbulent atmosphere under the guidance of a nucleus of Christian laymen and priests.” (Pg. 10-11)
She states, “If the New Church had an iconography, its image of Christ would not be modeled on the passive, saccharine figure portrayed in children’s catechism books. Its cultic image would more likely be a photograph of the angry Father Berrigan going to jail in protest against racism or war. The theology of the New Church feeds with new appetite upon an old paradox: the disparity between the social radicalism of the Gospels and the Church’s resistance to social change...” (Pg. 30)
In the next chapter, she recounts that Philip Berrigan and others “had poured blood on several hundred draft records in a Selective Service office … the Catonsville Nine… [included] Fathers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, long-publicized shock troops of the Peace Movement, idols of the Catholic New Left, the Church’s most militant and prolific writers on pacifism and civil rights.” (Pg. 48)
She records, “Daniel was … transformed [in 1963-1964] by his trips to Marxist countries. He was one of the first American priests to be granted visas to Hungary, Russia, and Czechoslovakia, and these excursions shook him. He worked behind the Iron Curtain with Catholic families whose jobs, schooling, and income were constantly jeopardized by their religious practices. And he was very affected by the courage of Christians whose faith survived the duress of Marxist regimes.” (Pg. 76)
She continues, “With Philip’s first Vietnam confrontation, the Berrigans became the high priests of the Catholic peace movement, the commandoes of the new Guerrilla Christianity which… would invade the draft boards of Baltimore and Catonsville. The Berrigans’ belligerence, and the actions of the Catonsville Nine, are a strictly Catholic phenomenon. They are … also a defiance of the heavy-handed authoritarianism, the blind nationalism that makes the American Catholic community the most war-mongering segment of the nation.” (Pg. 90)
She explains, “The liturgical aspects of pouring blood on draft files pleased Philip… Daniel, whose ideas had so influenced Philip’s life, was often taken aback by the radical conclusions which his younger brother drew them to. Daniel was violently opposed to the idea of burning any property. But he approved the blood-pouring ritual, as did Thomas Merton.” (Pg. 117)
She reports, “The underground Church is a mess,’ Daniel says. ‘The underground Church is all talk and no action. Just another liberal white ghetto. What a country club.” (Pg. 138)
She suggests, “The rage of the peace movement was given a new fanaticism by these religious men. They had come not only to protest the war, but also to celebrate and mourn the incarceration of the young Church’s two greatest idols. Their passion made it plain that the sacrificial theatrics of the Catonsville Nine could only have been enacted by members of the region which still retains… the immolation of a victim to absolve the sins and ease the conscience of the tribe.” (Pg. 160)
She acknowledges, “The appearance of Philip Berrigan [at the trial] on the witness stand was the most troubling moment of the Catonsville trial. One had thought of him as indestructible; he seemed exhausted, browbeaten, unsure. It was as if the violence of prison life, which he had endured so stalwartly at first, had accumulated to fell him in a sudden blow… Jeremiah’s voice was stilled.” (Pg. 203)
She recounts, ‘As the clerk spoke her last word to legitimize the verdict passed upon the Nine, a deep and powerful man’s voice boomed out from the spectator’s gallery: ‘Members of the jury, you have just found Jesus Christ guilty!’ … four marshals rushed to the man and seized him… As they were being escorted out of the courtroom… the strains of ‘We Shall Overcome’ filled the halls… Daniel Berrigan was saying extraordinary things… ‘I think we agree that this was the greatest day of our lives.’” (Pg.
224-225)\
In the final chapter on Mendez Arceo and Ivan Illich, she summarizes, “For the Catholic progressive who still desire to keep some fidelity to the institution, the decade of the seventies promises to be one in which they will need more blind faith then ever in the Church-as-She… Their very radicalism seems to give them the courage to play the rules of the game, and to reform from the inside… Their endurance, and the capacity of any reform-minded Catholic to remain in the institutional church, will depend on the mystery of faith…” (Pg. 320-321)
This book will be of great interest to those studying progressive movements within Catholicism.
April 21, 2020
Loved this book- highly recommend if you get your hands on it.
September 14, 2025
"When the radical priest come to get me released, we was all on the cover of NEWSWEEK".---Paul Simon, "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard".
Si com Jesu itas, non com Jesuitas".---Old Catholic saying
Actually, Paul it was the cover of TIME, but I know that would not have rhymed, and it wasn't one "radical priest" but two, brothers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, who were also Brothers in the Jesuit Order, or Society of Jesus. Believe it or not (and you are free to believe anything about Julio) I served time in the same correctional center as the brothers Berrigan, just in a different decade. (Philip also did time at the Fed Maximum Facility at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he got along well with Jimmy Hoffa.) I remember telling the boys around me about the "past radical history of this place", from conscientious objector poets to blacklisted screenwriters to Catholic Viet Nam War dissidents. The Berrigans form the heart and soul of Ms. du Plaxix Gray's hagiography of clerical American anti-war activists who took their protest to a whole new militant level, by destroying draft card records, sacking government offices containing files on anti-war protestors and blocking the movement of troops and ammo at Army and Air Force bases. The surprising thing is that the Roman Head Druid (as Trotsky called the Pope) did not take action against them. Why not? By the late 1960s the Jesuits, who had educated everyone from the Marquis de Sade to Fidel Castro, had taken a sharp left turn politically, and to purge them would have been pontifically suicidal. In fact, by the time I studied in Brazil in the 1980s you were more likely to find a radical Jesuit working politics than a radical Communist. (By that time the Brazilian Communist Party had committed its own political suicide.) As Ms. du Plessix Gray shows, in the Western Hemisphere, inside the Catholic Church, the lunatics had taken over the asylum. Alas, it was not to last. John Paul II , after his coronation, silenced or expelled all the "radical priests" and by then the Berrigans had voluntarily left a Church that could not be reformed. (Any resemblance to Soviet Communism is purely intentional on my part.) By the way, Francine left the world of reporting on Jesuit dissidents to write the sultry best-seller LOVERS AND TYRANTS. I still remember the dirty parts of that one.
Si com Jesu itas, non com Jesuitas".---Old Catholic saying
Actually, Paul it was the cover of TIME, but I know that would not have rhymed, and it wasn't one "radical priest" but two, brothers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, who were also Brothers in the Jesuit Order, or Society of Jesus. Believe it or not (and you are free to believe anything about Julio) I served time in the same correctional center as the brothers Berrigan, just in a different decade. (Philip also did time at the Fed Maximum Facility at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he got along well with Jimmy Hoffa.) I remember telling the boys around me about the "past radical history of this place", from conscientious objector poets to blacklisted screenwriters to Catholic Viet Nam War dissidents. The Berrigans form the heart and soul of Ms. du Plaxix Gray's hagiography of clerical American anti-war activists who took their protest to a whole new militant level, by destroying draft card records, sacking government offices containing files on anti-war protestors and blocking the movement of troops and ammo at Army and Air Force bases. The surprising thing is that the Roman Head Druid (as Trotsky called the Pope) did not take action against them. Why not? By the late 1960s the Jesuits, who had educated everyone from the Marquis de Sade to Fidel Castro, had taken a sharp left turn politically, and to purge them would have been pontifically suicidal. In fact, by the time I studied in Brazil in the 1980s you were more likely to find a radical Jesuit working politics than a radical Communist. (By that time the Brazilian Communist Party had committed its own political suicide.) As Ms. du Plessix Gray shows, in the Western Hemisphere, inside the Catholic Church, the lunatics had taken over the asylum. Alas, it was not to last. John Paul II , after his coronation, silenced or expelled all the "radical priests" and by then the Berrigans had voluntarily left a Church that could not be reformed. (Any resemblance to Soviet Communism is purely intentional on my part.) By the way, Francine left the world of reporting on Jesuit dissidents to write the sultry best-seller LOVERS AND TYRANTS. I still remember the dirty parts of that one.
Want to read
January 16, 2019I read this a long time ago but I barely remember it. I probably will not read it again but I hope to read some of her other work I do not yet know. I have read her with great enjoyment in the past.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews