Love Quote by Daniel Berrigan

Berrigan is sketching a theology of action that refuses the usual bargain: do good, get results. The first sentence sounds almost like a report from the field - "their conviction" - distancing the speaker just enough to show how strange and bracing that faith can be. Then he steps in: "I believe that with all my heart". The line lands because it’s devotional language aimed at something modern activists are trained to distrust: purity, not as self-righteous branding, but as intention scrubbed clean of vanity, careerism, and the dopamine hit of measurable impact.

The pivot is the steel: "but I'm not responsible for its going somewhere". That "but" is doing heavy lifting. Berrigan, the Jesuit who burned draft files and helped found the Catholic Left during Vietnam, knew exactly how much pressure movements put on themselves to deliver wins on a timetable set by the news cycle or the state. He’s arguing for moral labor that isn’t hostage to outcomes - not because outcomes don’t matter, but because making them the condition of action quietly hands your conscience over to forces you can’t control.

The subtext is anti-heroic. He’s stripping away the savior fantasy that haunts religious and political work alike: if you are pure enough, you can steer history. Instead, purity becomes a discipline of relinquishment. You act because you must, you hope because you can, and you accept that the arc you’re trying to bend may not visibly move in your lifetime. That’s not resignation; it’s insulation against despair and against the corrupting need to be proven right.