Ray spoke in Santa Cruz, CA, on April 30, an hour after learning of Dan Berrigan’s departure for a better place. In introducing the evening and the film Drone, before his talk (see link to YouTube video below), Ray spoke of the last time he visited Dan at Fordham. It was just a couple of weeks before the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence learned they would be able to go to Russia to present Edward Snowden with the annual SAAII award (for 2013).
Reminiscing about that time with Dan, Ray recalled that he asked him, “Is there something you would like to say to Ed Snowden?” “Yeah,” came the immediate answer, “Tell him he did the right thing!” When mutual friend Dan Ellsberg came up later in the same conversation, Fr. Dan interrupted with, “You tell him he did the right thing, too!”
Typically simple and at the same time bedrock profound. In any case, this will help explain why, in his subsequent remarks in Santa Cruz, Ray focused on our common need to figure it out and “do the right thing.”
Those words seemed appropriate to set the stage for emphasizing the need to be very intentional about trying to figure out and then do the “right thing” – eschewing the the all too common hand-wringing and exculpatory moans like “Yes, BUT WHAT can we do?” in favor of trying to discern “What can WE DO!”