Three Catholic Worker activists are scheduled to be sentenced separately beginning Thursday morning at 10:00 and going into Friday for trespassing on a major U.S. nuclear weapons facility in Georgia. Instructions on how to listen to the hearings are here.
Last month, one of the co-defendents, Patrick O’Neill from North Carolina, was sentenced to 14 months.
The defendants are known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 for following the biblical edict to turn swords into plowshares. They include Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Clare Grady of Ithaca, New York and Carmen Trotta of the New York Catholic Worker.
On April 4, 2018 — exactly 50 years after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — the activists entered the massive Trident missile base at Kings Bay, Georgia. They spray painted “Abolish Nukes Now” and “Choose Life” and hammered on a monument to nuclear weapons at the base.
The group notes: “With the nation’s attention being drawn to Georgia and the pending runoffs to determine the majority in the U.S. Senate, three of the Kings Bay Plowshares defendants have arranged with the federal court in Brunswick, Georgia to appear virtually for sentencing this week. The disarmament activists have received little national attention since their action against the Trident submarine base more than two years ago while the stakes are much higher, our future existence and the very survival of our world as we know it. …
“On Oct. 24 the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was ratified by the 50th nation necessary for this international law to enter into force. This law making nuclear weapons illegal now takes effect on Jan. 22, 2021, a little more than 75 years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” See IPA news release: “* Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty Enters into Force * Religious Freedom?”
Another of the seven activist, Jesuit Fr. Steve Kelly, was sentenced to 33 months, time he had already served having been held in county jail since the action. He is now being transported to the West Coast by the U.S. Marshals for an earlier probation violation.
For more information, contact:
Ellen Barfield, ellene4pj@yahoo.com
Bill Ofenloch, billcpf@aol.com
Mary Anne Grady Flores, gradyflores08@gmail.com
Also see: KingsBayPlowshares7.org and @kingsbayplow7.
