WASHINGTON (RNS) — Five faith leaders were arrested while praying in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Monday (May 5), the second time in as many weeks clergy and others have been handcuffed as they speak out against the Republican-led budget bill.
Among those arrested was Shane Claiborne, a longtime activist and co-director of Red Letter Christians, a Christian social justice group. Claiborne, who is based in Philadelphia and known for his longstanding opposition to the death penalty and gun violence, prayed side by side with others for several minutes in the Rotunda before eventually being arrested by Capitol police.
Capitol police arrest Shane Claiborne, center, and others after praying in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, Monday, May 5, 2025, in Washington. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)
“Reorder our moral compass,” Claiborne said, standing near a statue commemorating famous suffragettes and abolitionists. “Stir the conscience of our nation. Let justice rise up on these very steps, let truth trouble the chambers of the Capitol. Let there be no peace where there is no justice. Let there be no comfort for those who legislate cruelty.”
Claiborne added: “Let those of us gathered here rise not with fear but with fire, because as long as the details are still being worked out in committee …” as the group, which included Christian and Jewish activists, responded in unison: “You can work a miracle.”
Shortly after an officer gave multiple verbal warnings, roughly two-dozen officers surrounded the group and began arresting them one by one. Members of the group prayed and some sang “This Little Light of Mine” as they were led away from the Rotunda.
According to organizers, also arrested were the Revs. Alvin Jackson and Hanna Broome, both affiliated with the activist group Repairers of the Breach; Ariel Gold, USA director of the interfaith The Fellowship of Reconciliation; and the Rev. Joel Simpson, pastor at First United Methodist Church in Taylorsville, North Carolina.
A group kneels in prayer in the Capitol Rotunda before being arrested, Monday, May 5, 2025, in Washington. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)
Police cleared the Capitol Rotunda to make the arrests but allowed press to continue documenting the scene as they placed the five people in handcuffs. At a similar protest a week before, press were steered into a section with a closed door and then instructed to leave the floor entirely.
In an email to RNS on Monday, Capitol Police confirmed they arrested five people after warning them multiple times, charging them with “crowding, obstructing, and incommoding.”
Reached by phone after he was released from police custody several hours after the demonstration, Claiborne said his interactions with officers were largely positive but he felt protest was necessary. He cited inspiration from the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights advocacy and argued the GOP-led budget constituted an emergency for the poor, comparing the legislation to an out-of-control fire.
“We think that these are extreme times, and they warrant extreme measures,” Claiborne said. “So we’re going to bear witness, non-violently.”
The demonstrators had initially approached the U.S. Capitol steps to stage their prayer, but police erected barricades as they approached and temporarily closed off the area on the east side of the Capitol.
The protest is the latest in an ongoing Monday protest effort launched last month by the Rev. William Barber, a prominent pastor, anti-poverty activist, and founder of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. The campaign is focused on countering the proposed Republican budget, with organizers protesting potential cuts to Medicaid and other programs designed to help low-income Americans.
Last week, Barber and two others were arrested while praying in the Rotunda.
“It is a sad day in America when you can be arrested in the people’s house for merely praying because the congresspeople in a party in that house are choosing to prey — P-R-E-Y — on the most vulnerable of this nation, along with the president of the nation,” Barber told RNS in a phone interview, referring to the latest arrests. “But we will not bow. We will not stop. We have to raise moral dissent.”
The Rev. Leslie Copeland-Tune speaks at a rally near the U.S. Supreme Court, Monday, May 5, 2025, in Washington. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)
The arrests both weeks followed rallies earlier in the day in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, where faith leaders repeatedly decried the bill.
“We are gathered here in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, and in the shadow of the Capitol, to stand up and to speak out about a federal budget that seems to have emerged like a phoenix from the very pit of hell,” said the Rev. Leslie Copeland-Tune, of the National Council of Churches, on May 5.
Claiborne also railed against the bill and criticized those who have invoked faith to defend President Donald Trump’s policies. He held up a version of the four biblical gospels that had all verses relating to the poor, love, and compassion redacted to make his point.
“It’s called the Gospel of Donald Trump,” he said.
Organizers say they plan to continue the demonstrations over the next few weeks as Congress continues to debate the budget bill, which Trump has described as a “big, beautiful bill.”
Claiborne said even as he and the others sat in the back of a police van on Monday, the group was already planning future demonstrations.
“We were doing two hours of organizing with Rev. Alvin (Jackson) in there,” Claiborne said, laughing. “One less Zoom call.”
This story has been updated with comments from Claiborne and Barber.
