Jesuit priest, peace activist Daniel Berrigan dies at 94
NEW YORK (AP) — The Rev. Daniel Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest and peace activist who was imprisoned for burning draft files in a protest against the Vietnam War, died Saturday.
Berrigan died at Murray-Weigel Hall, a Jesuit health care community in New York City after a "long illness," according to Michael Benigno, a spokesman for the Jesuits USA Northeast Province.
The Catonsville Nine, as they came to be known, were convicted on federal charges accusing them of destroying U.S. property and interfering with the Selective Service Act of 1967.
Berrigan, a writer and poet, wrote about the courtroom experience in 1970 in a one-act play, "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine," which was later made into a movie.
Soon after that, he and his brother founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship, which helped organize protests against U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Berrigan traveled to North Vietnam in 1968 and returned with three American prisoners of war who were being released as a goodwill gesture.
Both were arrested that year after entering a General Electric nuclear missile facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and damaging nuclear warhead nose cones.