Daniel Berrigan knew any true encounter with God will scandalize us, destabilize us.

Daniel Berrigan, the Jesuit priest and acclaimed poet who for decades famously challenged U.S. Catholics to reject war and nuclear weapons, died on April 30. He was 94. He was a Jesuit for 76 years and a priest for 63 years.

Little did Karol Wojtyla know on that moonlit night what lay ahead of him: the encyclicals, the meetings with statesmen and governmental leaders, the political and religious controversies.

Maurice Isserman the William R Kenan Jr Professor of History at Hamilton College in Clinton N Y has a well-earned reputation as a leading historian of the American political left His specialty has led him to explore the life of the socialist activist Michael Harrington (1928-89).