Peaceful warrior

During the last years of martial law, late in 1983, in Bacolod, I went to visit the "Negros Nine" in the city jail. We met them in the prison yard; six Catholic lay leaders; Father Itak Dangan of the Philippines; Father Brian Gore, Columban, of Australia; and Father Niall O’Brien, Columban, of Ireland. They were charged with multiple murder – the killing of the Mayor of Kabankalan, Pablo Sola, and his four companions.

All nine were strong in spirit, confident in their innocence, cheerful, smiling. But the most cheerful of them all was Father Niall O’Brien. He was dressed in shorts and chinelas, stripped to the waist, tanned with the sun. He spoke of being in jail as if it was a privilege and a joy. He said: "Other criminals break out of prison… They break out! … We broke in!" And he laughed.

It happened this way. When they were charged with murder, the six lay leaders were locked in jail. But the priests were put under house arrest. Niall felt that this was unjust. Over the breakfast table he said to Father Brian Gore: "Here we are, having an Irish breakfast, and those poor guys are starving! We should be with them!"

So he asked permission of the civil authorities to visit their six friends in prison. It was granted. Accompanied by their armed guards, they went to the city jail. They were let in. Once inside, they refused to go out. Bishop Antonio Y. Fortich legalized them, a little, by appointing them as chaplains to the prisoners. They stayed in jail for 17 months. Other men break out of jail. But Niall, Brian and Itak broke in!

Anyone who knew Father Niall O’Brian would know that he was constitutionally incapable of killing anyone. His own religious congregation, the Columbans, describe him as "a passionate advocate of peace. He saw peace-building as essential to Christian discipleship." From his first days in the seminary he was known as the apostle of "active non-violence." A wide reader, he followed every adventure of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Father Danny Berrigan. He founded the "Pax Christi" Movement in the Philippines, and was the national chaplain of the Movement until the day of his death. "Pax Christi" means "The Peace of Christ."

All through his life he was a strong opponent of capital punishment. But after more than a year in prison he realized that he himself might suffer the death penalty. He wrote in his prison diary: "If the bitter end does come, I will accept it as God’s will, and use it to try and bring about a lessening of violence in the world, a growth of love and care, and a lessening of the amount of tears shed."

Born in Blackrock, Dublin County in Ireland, on August 2, 1939, he entered the Columban Seminary in 1957, at the age of 18. It was a time of great excitement in the Church, a time of change, a time of restlessness. Pope John XXIII was planning the Second Vatican Council. The young Niall O’Brien was fascinated by the words of the Holy Father: "We need to open the windows and let some fresh air blow into the Church"

Even as a student, he was looking for new ways to bring the world to unity and peace. He organized a yearly visit to the Columban Seminary of Malaysians studying medicine in Dublin. Very few of these Malaysians were Christian. They were Muslim. He felt that the first step toward unity and peace was to know each other, to be friends. He organized two national gatherings of Irish Catholic seminarians, but he included other seminarians from overseas, and Anglicans from England! He was a peaceful revolutionary. Never a rebel.

He was ordained priest in 1963, and arrived in the Philippines in 1964, at the age of 25. He was assigned to Negros, to the Diocese of Bacolod. He served in the parishes of Kabankalan, Sipalay, Isabela, La Castellonia, Biscom, Candoni and Tabugon. He established the Sa’Maria Movement, three days of intense prayer and instruction in the faith, for lay men, much like the Cursillo. And he began to work with the sacadas. He felt that the treatment they were receiving was thoroughly, grossly unjust, It was then that he began to attract the attention of powerful hacienderos in the sugar industry. It was then that he began to have a little trouble with the government, and with the military. It was then that he was marked as "a turbulent priest."

The Second Vatican Council accepted the position that Catholics everywhere should hear the word of God in their own language, at Mass, and in the conferring of the Sacraments. Father O’Brien was a linguist, fluent in English, French, Italian, Gaelic and Ilonggo. He believed, with all his heart, that the poor, uneducated Catholics with whom he was working should worship God in a language they could understand. He mastered Hiligaynon, the language of the Ilonggos.

He began to draw up services in Hiligaynon for communities that could not have Sunday Mass. He was invited by Bishop Fortich to become a member of the Liturgical Commission which translated the Bible and the liturgy of the Mass into Hiligaynon. All of the Bishops of the Ilonggo Dioceses recognized the competence of Father Niall O’Brien in that language. He was a foreigner by birth, but an Ilonggo at heart. He became the Chairman of that Commission.

Knowing the hardships of people living on haciendas, knowing the misery of the sacadas, and realizing that the agony of the poor was rooted in poverty, Niall began to set up cooperatives in the mountains of Tubugan. These cooperatives were modeled on the Kibbutz of modern Israel. They are still operating to this day. Niall began his campaign for justice for the sacadas. His activities, though they were done quietly and deep in the Provinces, attracted the attention of Manila. Eventually he received a national award for building structures for peace from the Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Foundation.

The end of their prison term came about, strongly enough, because of Niall’s mother–Olivia Crowley O’Brien. Niall had been strongly critical of the United States because of their profligate lending to Marcos. He said that "it created more coffins outside our churches" and that "the weight of repayment falls on the poor." When Ronald Reagan visited Ireland, Niall’s mother placed herself outside the U.S. Embassy in Dublin, in a cage that looked like the prison bars of a jail. When Reagan asked the reason for this, he was told: "Her son, who is a priest, has been jailed by Marcos." Negotiations began for the release of Father Niall O’Brien, of Dublin.

Marcos offered Father O’Brien and Father Gore a pardon, with parole for the seven Filipinos. The Negros Nine discussed this, in the prison yard, and decided against it, because it implied guilt. Finally there was a deal: charges against all of the Negros Nine would be dropped, provided that Father O’Brien and Father Gore left the country, of their own free will. The government did not want to be accused of deporting them, without reason. Fathers Brian and Niall accepted this, for the sake of the other seven.

After Marcos himself left the country, Father Niall O’Brien returned to the Philippines, and to Kabankalan. He wrote three books: Seeds of Injustice, Revolution from the Heart, and Island of Tears, Island of Hope. He edited a magazine on missionaries, called: "Misyon." And he worked with his chosen people, the Ilonggos.

Six months ago, he came to my office, planning to produce a new pastoral magazine, for priests. He said: "I have only six months to live. I have a blood disease. I would like to do something really good, in that short time. And I think that what the Church in the Philippines needs most at this moment is the spiritual renewal of priests.!"

He worked on that magazine. But the prognosis of the doctor was accurate. He died on April 28, 2004, in Europe, from the blood disease. But his ashes have been brought back to the Philippines. He wanted that. He is now buried among the people with whom he lived and worked for 40 years, his friends. He is buried in Kabankalan.