Divine Intervention

In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, a group of long-haired young priests and combat boots-wearing nuns in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester banded together to provide sanctuary for a draft resister named Paul Couming. Starting with that vivid tale, Divine Intervention tells the sprawling story of an audacious, improvised, Catholic anti-war movement that conducted break-ins of draft offices, waged a running battle with the FBI, and led to  dramatic trials in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey, of activists charged with conspiracy, kidnapping and, sabotage. Interwoven is also a love story: of a Dorchester priest who gave up the cloth to marry an anti-war comrade—a union that we learn produced the podcast’s host, Brendan Patrick Hughes. With deft writing, humor, and pacing, Hughes paints a vibrant portrait of the Boston Irish, of generational and doctrinal divides within the Church, and of an era when young Americans were prepared to put lives and futures on the line for their beliefs. For revisiting a fascinating, forgotten historical saga with a newly resonant message of resistance, Divine Intervention receives a Peabody Award.