WASHINGTON - Several religious leaders were among about 65 war protestors arrested near the White House March 26, according to the United Methodist News Service.
Chicago Bishop Joseph Sprague was arrested along with Jim Winkler, general secretary of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia.
Also arrested were Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s; and Nobel Peace Prize laureates Jody Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire.
Most of those arrested were charged with demonstrating without a permit and were released pending court hearings.
"The Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church has sought four times to have an audience with President (George) Bush," Sprague said in a press conference before the demonstration. "There has been no response other than a terse ‘thanks, but no thanks.'"
Both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are United Methodist Church members.
In February, a committee of bishops dismissed a heresy complaint leveled at Sprague by a group of clergy and lay people after he openly rejected Christian doctrines such as the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ and salvation through Christ alone.
