Three Pentagon Resisters Sentenced to Fines for August 9, 2011 Arrests

[Amber Mason]

Hiroshima Nagasaki Faith & Resistance Retreat- Washington DC

Bill, Rosemary, Sr. Margaret, Kevin, and Amber are ready for their witness.  Kathy keeps them company

 

Three Pentagon Resisters Sentenced to Fines for August 9, 2011 Arrests

 On August 9, the anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, and the martyrdom of Sr. Edith Stein and Franz Jagerstatter, Catholic Workers' Amber and Kevin Mason and Bill Frankel-Streit, peace activist Rosemary Thompson from Baltimore, and Sr. Margaret McKenna from the New Jerusalem community in Philadelphia, were arrested at the Pentagon as they stood outside the designated "protest area" near the visitor's entrance holding photos of the A-bomb victims and a banner that said: "No More Hiroshima's and Nagasaki's." 

 They appeared in in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA on Friday, Oct. 21. Charges against Amber and Kevin Mason, from the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, were dropped. (In recent years U.S. prosecutors in these cases have a policy whereby they do not prosecute first time arrestees at the Pentagon).  Bill, Rosemary and Sr. Margaret entered guilty pleas and made inspiring statements about why they were compelled to act and risk arrest. U.S. Magistrate Jones then gave each person a $250 fine.

 

Hiroshima-Nagasaki Faith and Resistance Retreat  Report from Washington, D.C. by Art Laffin Focusing on the theme: "Remember the Pain, Repent the Sin, Recalim the Future," about 25 people attended the annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki Faith and Resistance retreat in Washington, D.C. sponsored by Jonah House and the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. The retreat included prayer, viewing the compelling new film by Bud Ryan and Susan Overbey, "The Forgotten Bomb," presentations on the U.S. Bomb complex and the Drone and Trident weapons systems, and three nonviolent nonviolent actions. On August 6, the feast of the Transfiguration and the 66th anniversary of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima,  we witnessed at the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb, which was on display at The National Air and Space Museum Steven Udvar-Hazy Center. As we knelt in silent vigil in front of this warplane of unspeakable horror as a tour guide told the myth about the bombing, we held photos of the A-bomb victims, and placed peace cranes near the plane. From a catwalk above the plane, a banner was unfurled with a quote from Pope Paul VI, referring to the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima as "butchery of untold magnitude." We concluded the witness with a reading of Dan Berrigan's poem, " A Shadow on the Rock," and processed out of the museum singing "Child, Child."

On August 9, the anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, and the martyrdom of Sr. Edith Stein and Franz Jagerstatter, the community held two actions were held at the Pentagon and White House. At the early morning Pentagon witness, Catholic Workers' Amber and Kevin Mason and Bill Frankel-Streit, peace activist Rosemary Thompson from Baltimore, and Sr. Margaret McKenna from the New Jerusalem community in Philadelphia, were arrested as they stood outside the designated "protest area" near the visitor's entrance holding photos of the A-bomb victims and a banner that said: "No More Hiroshima's and Nagasaki's." Following their arrest, other retreatants who were in the designated protest zone read the entire "Original Child Bomb," by Thomas Merton, as well as an account of a Nagasaki survivor. Selections from the writings of Franz Jagerstatter and Sr. Edith Stein were also offered. Later at Noon at the White House, the community offered a similar action as was held at the Pentagon. During this witness many of the same readings that were read at the Pentagon were offered, as well as a recent quote from the Apostolic Nuncio to the UN stating there is no longer any justification for nuclear weapons (see below quote). Songs were also sung remembering the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An urgent appeal was made to abolish all nuclear weapons and war, to stop construction of new bomb facilities at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Kansas City, and to redirect all the wasted money and resources going into modernizing the U.S. bomb complex to instead meet urgent human needs. We also invoked the names of all the peace prisoners and recounted their life-giving actions for a world without weapons and war. And finally, a powerful peace poem was offered by Palmer, from the New Jerusalem Community. As the witness concluded, Ron Greene, a veteran, biologist and activist from Oregon, was arrested as he sat on the sidewalk in front of the White House holding a sign announcing his hunger-strike to save birds that are going extinct where he lives and calling for a peaceful, sustainable planet.

We continue to keep our eyes on the prize as we strive together to forge the beloved community.

 

Apostolic Nuncio to the UN July 1 Statement on Nuclear Weapons Speaking in the heartland of the United States and literally in the shadow of the new, multi-billion dollar nuclear bomb facility being constructed in Kansas City, MO, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, Apostolic Nuncio to the United Nations declared on July 1st: "Viewed from a legal, political, security and most of all - moral - perspective, there is no justification today for the continued maintenance of nuclear weapons." 

 

The Nuncio went on to condemn the current efforts to modernize the nuclear weapons infrastructures here in the U.S. as well as the other nuclear weapons states saying that, "With development needs across the globe far outpacing the resources being devoted to address them, the thought of pouring hundreds of billions of additional dollars into the world's nuclear arsenals is nothing short of sinful. It is the grossest misplacement of priorities and truly constitutes the very 'theft from the poor' which the Second Vatican Council condemned so long ago."