Plowshares activists motivated to witness to God’s call for peace
June 24,2018
Crux
Plowshares activists motivated to witness to God’s call for peace
By Dennis Sadowski for Catholic News Services
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Entering a military base without authorization in the dark of night to symbolically dismantle nuclear warheads is not an act most people ever consider.
Yet seven Catholics who said they were motivated by the Gospel’s call to nonviolence took the extraordinary step to cut their way into Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in St. Marys, Georgia, the night of April 4-5. They poured their own blood on base property, hammered on equipment and issued an “indictment” saying the United States was violating international agreements that limit nuclear weapon proliferation.
The base is the East Coast home of the Navy’s Trident submarine, each of which can carry up to 24 ballistic missiles that each have up to eight independently targetable re-entry vehicles.
The seven, who call themselves the Kings Bay Plowshares, said the capacity of just one Trident submarine to destroy the world is beyond comprehension.
The fleet includes 14 such submarines outfitted to carry nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
“The Trident is essentially the end of the world. There’s no other words to describe it but diabolical,” said Patrick O’Neill, a Catholic Worker from Garner, North Carolina, one of the seven….