Daniel Berrigan, priest and peace activist, dies at 94

Rev. Daniel Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest whose resistance to the Vietnam War landed him in jail, died Saturday in New York City at the age of 94.

He died Saturday in New York after a “long illness” a spokesperson for the Murray-Weigel Hall, a Jesuit health community, told the AP.

Berrigan, who traveled to North Vietnam in 1968, was later sentenced to prison for burning draft cards to protest America’s involvement in the conflict, according to the Associated Press.

He and nine others were sentenced on federal charges for destroying United States property and disrupting the Selective Service Act of 1967, when they entered a Maryland draft hall in 1968 and set draft documents on fire in a garbage can.

Called the “Catonsville Nine,” all of the group’s members were sentenced to prison terms of 2 to 3.5 years, the AP said.

Berrigan and his brother, the Rev. Philip Berrigan, who was among those charged, went on to become leaders of the anti-war movement.

He later protested wars in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan and participated in the Occupy Wall Street Movement in New York, Reuters reported.

Born in Minnesota, Berrigan joined the Jesuit order in 1939 and became a priest in 1952.