Patrick O’Neill sentenced to 14 months in prison for nuclear disarmament action

Posted on October 17, 2020
from the Kings Bay Plowshares media team
BRUNSWICK, GA — On October 16, in a decision likely unexpected by both the defendants and prosecutors, a federal judge passed down a significantly lower prison sentence to one of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7.
Judge Lisa Godbey Wood sentenced Patrick O’Neill of Garner, North Carolina to 14 months in prison for his role in the nonviolent protest on April 4, 2018 at the Kings Bay Naval Base in St. Mary’s, Georgia.
“I’m grateful that we were able to pull the heartstrings of the judge and help her be as merciful as she can be under the circumstances,” O’Neill said afterwards. 
Wood began the proceedings by telling O’Neill she’d “received quite a lengthy, quite tall stack of records, of letters, on your behalf.”
Federal prosecutors argued O’Neill, 64, should serve the full extent of the recommended prison sentence, up to 26 months, because of his “past criminal history” of nonviolent protest and “noncooperation” during them as well as his “criminal associations” with nonviolent protesters. They argued that O’Neill was not remorseful, risked his life and the lives of the people on the base including security personnel, and helped cause more than $33,000 in damages. The prosecutors’ so-called “risk of death” argument is unprecedented in 40 years of Plowshares federal prosecutions.
Two of O’Neill’s children testified on his behalf as character witnesses, as did his uncle who helped raise him after his father died when he was five years old.
On a video link from his home in Connecticut, O’Neill’s uncle Denis O’Donnell, 80, described his pride of his long time as a soldier in the U.S. Army and 35 years as a Yonkers, NY police officer. O’Donnell, a Trump supporter, then spoke of his long admiration of his nephew and his wife Mary Rider’s kindness and generosity.
“He’s a committed pacifist, and that’s not a dirty word. I’m not against the military in any way. I’m a proud soldier and so are my children. I’m proud of Patrick. I’m proud of Mary. And I’m proud of their children.”
O’Neill’s daughter, Bernadette Naro, 32 and a campus minister at a Catholic school in Atlanta, then read a statement describing growing up in the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House founded by her parents.
“Women and children who were in crisis came to live alongside us,” she said. “My parents chose to live in this way because of their commitment to living out their Christian faith.”
When Wood asked her if there should be consequences to her dad’s actions, Bernadette replied, “I guess there already have been consequences.”
Timmy O’Neill, 21 and a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said his father exemplifies “love incarnate, just positive intention towards everyone… (as opposed to) money and power and status… He provides love and care not just for our family but for other people in our community, town, church community, and many of them receive substantial assistance in housing, food, and clothing, and human necessity from my father and mother.”
“Dad’s service to community is extended through this action,” Timmy O’Neill said. “The Plowshares movement is a very internally consistent group with very strong held religious beliefs who are inspired by the teachings of activists and theologians throughout history.”
Patrick then read a long statement to the judge. (See below.)
“My hope is to never be vindicated. I hope the world can survive the nuclear arms race, and for global warming to turn out to be no big deal. I want our children and grandchildren to have a future with as much love, hope, and prosperity as most of you and I have enjoyed in our upbringings under First World circumstances. 
“I want my efforts on April 4, 2018 to essentially be viewed as misguided, foolish and in vain. In essence, I want to be judged wrong — not just by the findings of this court — but by the world,” he said. “For me to be a failure and a fool would be so much better than the calamity I fear for future generations if the Kings Bay Plowshares´ message turns out to be the horror we fear will come.
“This court, by its refusal to consider the lawlessness of weapons of mass destruction, is essentially declaring the end of the world to be acceptable. If the Trident D-5 missiles are ever launched and millions of people die, including many of you who reside here at the center of Ground Zero, one fact will remain clear: No laws were broken.
“Rather than criminals, we are messengers, just like the abolitionists were in the face of legalized slavery, or pacifists who went to prison rather than kill. And we took a chance, risked our freedom, and were mischaracterized by this court as threats to the safety of the community.”
The “decision to invent, build, deploy and possibly use nuclear weapons will not stand the test of time as good moral choices,” just as slavery and other historical wrongs have now been judged by history to have been horrible mistakes, he said.
Patrick told the court that only three more nations are needed to ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which will make nuclear weapons illegal. After the final three of 50 nations have ratified the treaty, it will enter into force 90 days later.
“Trident is the opposite of love. It is a machine of mass destruction, that robs our neighbors of love and hope. 
“While I have not heard much support for us expressed by this court, my hope is that I have been part of an effort to plant a seed that will sprout and grow in your souls, and eventually bear the fruit of true peace in your hearts. And that all humanity will come together to reject war and Trident and embrace the teachings of Jesus to Love One Another.”
Before passing her sentence Wood told Patrick, “You have a lot to put on the good side. And that must be counted for during sentencing…. But I have to take into consideration…. we are all bound by the laws of this country… There are consequences.”
O’Neill will be told when and where to report to prison within 90 days. With time served and good behavior, he might be eligible for release about 10 months later. He will then have supervised release for three years. Like the other two members of the Kings Bay Plowshares who have been sentenced, he is required to pay towards restitution to the Navy in the amount of $33,504 and $310 in special assessments. The judge also ordered that probation officers will have access to O’Neill’s financial information and permission will be needed for getting credit. A portion of his prison wages will also be garnished.
The day before sentencing O’Neill, Wood sentenced his co-defendant, Jesuit Father Steve Kelly, to 33 months. Codefendant Elizabeth McAlister was sentenced to time served in June. The remaining codefendants – Mark Colville, Martha Hennessy, Clare Grady, and Carmen Trotta – are scheduled to go before Wood for sentencing on November 12 and 13.
O’Neill intends to appeal.
It is perhaps a sideways victory. O’Neill must serve a 14-month sentence in federal prison during a pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States alone, and dozens at the prison he expects to be assigned to.
But, standing before the judge with his hands behind his back, he gave a thumbs up to his family and supporters in the gallery when Wood read his sentence.
“I think she saw how I live my life, and she decided she wasn’t going to give me the maximum,” he said afterwards. “I’m not going away for as long as I thought I was going to be.
“I think this is a good omen for my codefendants.”
Watch the October 11 Festival of Hope webinar here.
Patrick O’Neill speaks in front of the courthouse after his sentencing – watch the video here.
 
PATRICK O’NEILL’S SENTENCING STATEMENT
October 16, 2020
Federal Court, Brunswick, Georgia

Good afternoon, Judge Wood, Greg Gillully, all the U.S. Attorneys, Keith and all of the great defense attorneys who have assisted me, and all of the other court personnel.

We are slowly moving toward the end of this long ordeal (at least the courtroom portion of it for me). 

As I have repeated in this courtroom before: I don’t come before you today with any claims on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me, God.

Yes, I am going to tell the truth, but I can’t say for sure that my truth is God’s Truth. And in truth, to me, God’s truth is the only thing that matters.

First, I want to say my hope is to never be vindicated. I hope the world can survive the nuclear arms race, and for global warming to turn out to be NO big deal. I want our children and grandchildren to have a future with as much love, hope and prosperity as most of you and I have enjoyed in our upbringings under First World circumstances. 

I want my efforts on April 4, 2018 to essentially be viewed as misguided, foolish and in vain. In essence, I want to be judged wrong — not just by the findings of this court — but by the world. For me to be a failure and a fool would be so much better than the calamity I fear for future generations if the Kings Bay Plowshares´ message turns out to be the horror we fear will come.

For this court, the rule of law is paramount, and terms like ¨compelling interest¨and “risk of death” are in the forefront of the government´s case.

For me, our actions are guided by the words of the prophet Micah, who says in Micah chapter 5, verse 8: What does God require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. 

The 7 Kings Bay Plowshares acted with justice to address the abomination that is Trident. We used spray paint to name the idols erected in the missile shrine and swung hammers to smash the idols of weapons of mass destruction. We did not employ violent tactics. We did not act in a threatening manner. We did not resist authorities who encountered us. 

Even for those who have pride in our nation´s nuclear arsenal, how can it be that we could actually erect statues in honor of the most horrifying weapons of mass destruction ever developed? This is a form of heretical idolatry.

Although the base commander testified that he would neither confirm nor deny that Trident is a weapon of mass destruction, it is common knowledge that those subs just off the shore of St. Marys are armed with D-5 missiles, perhaps the deadliest weapon ever made.

It is simply indisputable that Trident is part of a system of U.S. warmaking that, if deployed, would spell death for millions, perhaps billions of people. This absolute truth begs the question: How deeply in sin have we humans sunk that we have collectively created weapons that can bring an end to the creative power of a loving God? 

That is a question that should not be shrouded by the rule of law, but rather held to accountability by the rule of law. Yet, in this courtroom, the fact that Trident is a diabolical death machine has been deemed irrelevant. The nonviolent fracturing of human law is all that matters here.

Humanity will never abolish war if we live in such deep denial of what we have done, and what we might do to God´s Creation because of Trident. This court, by its refusal to consider the lawlessness of weapons of mass destruction, is essentially declaring the end of the world to be acceptable. If the Trident D-5 missiles are ever launched and millions of people die, including many of you who reside here at the center of Ground Zero, one fact will remain clear: No laws were broken.

Rather than criminals, we are Messengers, just like the abolitionists were in the face of legalized slavery, or pacifists who went to prison rather than kill. And we took a chance, risked our freedom, and were mischaracterized by this court as threats to the safety of the community.

But it’s all a gamble, isn’t it? We gambled by breaking human laws and subjecting ourselves to prosecution and prison, to warn the world that nuclear weapons are the product of human sinfulness. 

So, off to jail and prison we go, all 7 of us thrice convicted felons. But what about all of you who are the operatives of this government? And what of all of us taxpayers who supply the means for carrying out the plans for war? What can we say of our gamble? What will history show us, a view far from now? Sadly, those who say nothing in the face of evil, are contributing to evil by their collective silence, and the denial of our collective sinfulness.  

This U.S. government — all three of its branches — have been wrong before. The disenfranchisement of Native Americans, the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans, the denial of the right to vote and the denigration of women, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the many wars of aggression waged by our nation, the current plight of Latinos and Muslims who are unwelcome in our Land of the Free. What of the courts that often uphold these actions that oppressed people? And what of Congress and the executive branch that passed and approved of the laws that codified and protected injustice?

Surely, the decision to invent, build, deploy and possibly use nuclear weapons will not stand the test of time as good moral choices, just as slavery and the other aforementioned wrongs have now been adjudged by history to have been horrible mistakes. 

Often the corrective remedy used to expose examples of lawlessness as an abuse of state authority has been nonviolent direct action. Historically, the Boston Tea Party and Biblically, Jesus cleansing the temple of the moneychangers, both involved damage to property to make a point and to challenge injustice.

I would argue, Yes, this court has a compelling interest, but it´s not in protecting weapons of mass destruction, but rather a compelling interest to protect God´s creation and the people imperiled by Trident from omnicide.

I think the message we brought to Kings Bay and to this court is painful to hear, and unthinkable to contemplate. It is easier for this court to focus on our fracturing of the law — human law — than to consider the madness of Trident, a weapon that is illegal under international law, which is supposed to be recognized as the supreme law of the land. 

In fact, our government has violated many vital laws regarding nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty clearly, among many others. But there is also good news. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons any day now WILL Be International Law. As of this week, 47 nations have ratified the treaty. Only 3 more nations are needed for global ratification that will mean there is NO doubt that we will have this new International Law on the books in the very near future.

That’s why you, Judge Wood, in perhaps the only time you expressed your personal opinion during the trial, said Trident is probably not unlawful. The United States refusal to recognize international law does not make international law irrelevant.

Then came the amazing Religious Freedom Restoration Act conclusion of this court that we 7 engaged in: “prophetic, sacramental, symbolic denuclearization.”

This court also concluded that we are “religious” actors with “sincerely held religious beliefs” and that the practice of our beliefs were burdened by this court’s sanctions. Clearly, the U.S. Attorney and the probation office do not agree with these findings, because all those facts were swept off the table by her honor’s conclusion that the compelling interest this court has in protecting the sanctity of naval station Kings Bay was paramount in this case.

Giving agency to Trident submarines and their cargo of nuclear weapons of mass destruction carried the day over our sincere religious intentions. So our jury never heard any evidence about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. 

Following our conviction, our fate was turned over to the local probation office, which continued the hard line against us.  

The probation officers calculating our guidelines dug deep to find aggravating factors — also known as enhancements — to make sure our guidelines were as severe as possible. The so-called “risk of death” enhancement — unprecedented in 40 years of Plowshares federal prosecutions — was a key enhancement that pushed the guidelines higher for all of us. 

At the same time, a key mitigating factor — our unprecedented effort of “acceptance of responsibility”– (Carmen and I wore cameras that recorded everything we did, and all of which provided the government with all the evidence it needed to prosecute us fully and convict us easily) was not factored into our sentencing guidelines. 

In addition, we carried with us a signed copy of our indictment of the base for war crimes, which included our collective conspiratorial intent that  made our convictions on the charge of conspiracy an open and shut case for the government. 

Yet none of this comprehensive and unprecedented acceptance of responsibility and de facto admission of guilt was considered by the probation office as mitigating. Judge Wood agreed.

In my specific case, I am the father of a daughter, Mary Evelyn, who has Down syndrome. The fact that my wife, Mary, and I serve as volunteer hospital chaplains and have devoted years of our lives to working with, housing, and feeding the poor, did not seem to matter to this probation office as it ramped up our guidelines.

My recommended guidelines are very high despite my “criminal history” of a felony conviction 36 years ago and only nonviolent misdemeanors, none of which any judge I’ve stood before for the last 35 years has given me an active jail sentence, except when I’ve asked for it in lieu of paying a fine. 

So all of my misdemeanor civil disobedience cases, none of which were crimes of profit, or violent or committed with malice have led this probation office to conclude that my family should be without my loving presence for more than two years.

Considering the most common word used to describe our prophetic, sacramental act is vandalism, I was taken aback by the harshness of these consequences. 

Still, I stand before you today, continuing my legacy of taking full responsibility for my actions on April 4, 2018. In fact, during his closing arguments at the trial, Greg Gillulley noted twice to the jury my comment: “If you do the crime, be prepared to do the time.”

Again, I think we clearly accepted full responsibility for our actions.

From Day 1 of our arraignment, this court has taken a very hard line against the 7 of us, and for more than 2 and one half years now that punitive policy has been unrelenting.

First came a high cash bond, house arrest and ankle monitors; justified by claims that we were a danger to community safety. Requests for loosening those restrictions were mostly denied. Since my release from the Glynn County jail in the spring of 2018, my life has been under the daily management of my probation officer, Woody King, who I personally like and have gotten to know. However, he treats me like a teenager, not an adult.

When Woody stopped by my house as I was taking out the trash, he said, “Mr. O’Neill, you’re supposed to be in your house.”

“I’m just taking out the trash,” I replied.

“Tell Mary to do that,” Woody said. I’m not sure that was the way Magistrate Stan Baker saw my house arrest, but that´s what Woody thought.

When I had my first meeting with Woody and his supervisor, I was told I was allowed to go to Mass on Sunday, but I was not permitted to stay after Mass to share a cup of coffee with my faith community. I was only allowed out for two hours on Sundays.

In addition, my more than two years under supervised house arrest and curfew will not count toward my sentence, despite the fact that I have now spent more than 400 days (thatś 400 24-hour days) confined to my house.

Three times since my release under these strict conditions I have had my children hospitalized outside the Eastern District of N.C., so I was unable to get permission to visit with them because of my home confinement, even though the Chapel Hill hospital was just 35 minutes from my home. 

When I told Woody my daughter Brianna was in the hospital with postpartum complications following the birth of my grandson, Luke, Woody said coldly, matter of factly, he could not approve the hospital visit. He never said anything kind or comforting about my daughter’s plight or ever asked again about her well being.

Like your families need you, my family needs me. The harsh conditions of pre-trial and post-trial release were hard on all 14 of us — Mary and I, our 8 children, two grandchildren and two sons-in law. I think it is clear that all seven of the Kings Bay Plowshares are honorable people who devote our lives to making the world a more peaceful, loving and safe place. 

Those who think democracy is working deride our tactics. “Seek out legal options for protesting,” they say, “write to your Congressional representatives; don’t break the law.” Such advice makes sense to those who think that individual citizens have as much power to effect change as do the corporations that give millions of dollars to legislators who in turn cast their votes for weapons and war, selling their vote to what Pres. Dwight Eisenhower termed the military industrial complex.

Recently, the 2020 War Appropriations Act passed in the Senate, by a margin of 86 to 14. Just 9 democrats, 4 republicans and Bernie voted no in this lopsided vote granting $740 billion to the pentagon that came during a deadly pandemic that is causing record unemployment, the shuttering of thousands of businesses and millions of Americans facing eviction.

The same U.S. Senate that pundits say has never been more partisan and divided, passed by a wide margin a war budget that is unconscionable during these times of great human needs left unmet.

I am sure my placard holding outside the gates of naval station Kings Bay would not have resulted in one vote being reversed. Those who see the law, which ultimately protects the wealthy, as sacrosanct, have no sense of the urgency of our times. 

But the suffering of the poor, burdened by misplaced priorities, a rigged system and the free pass issued to the Pentagon, are urgent matters. Who advocates for them in a society that spends literally trillions of dollars on warmaking, while telling the poor to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps? If your belly is full, you have a roof over your head and disposable income, it is harder for you to empathize with those whom Jesus calls outcasts. 

No one in this room today can deny that the theatrical tactics of the Kings Bay Plowshares has gotten your attention and the attention of thousands of people all over the world in a way no letter or phone call to Congress could. 

After 35 years of smooth sailing so to speak, the folks in the Pentagon and those operating naval station Kings Bay must now wrestle with the reality that their dangerous warmaking facility that specializes in the plans for mega-death are not above reproach. And to think it is even vulnerable to a band of old people intent on exposing the sinfulness of Trident.

My late father-in-law, Marine Lt. Col. James Rider, a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars, won four purple hearts, two Silver Stars and a Bronze Star and many other service medals. A warrior through and through, Jim Rider had great respect for his daughter and son-in-law. When someone wrote a letter to a newspaper criticizing my actions, he wrote in reply: “Based on my knowledge of military security, I don´t believe unarmed religious pacifists could gain access to these weapons facilities without the direct aid of the Holy Spirit. Therefore I support them.”

I too, give full credit to the God of Peace for our miraculous effort to smash idols.

Now, as our world is deep in the throes of coronavirus I wonder if I will be assigned to a federal prison for my punishment. A prison where I might be susceptible to a Covid-19 infection. I want to serve my sentence at Federal Prison Camp Butner, just an hour from my home. While the virus seems under control now, to date, 26 inmates and one guard have died from the coronavirus at Butner and 824 inmates have contracted coronavirus.

I am sure that hundreds of men and women have been sentenced to thousands of years in prison in this courtroom. While this work of incarceration pays the bills for many of you here today, I want you to see incarceration from the perspective of the convicted.

For me, walking into this courtroom is agonizing, emotionally horrifying and makes me feel physically sick. A person coming here for sentencing is likely experiencing one of the worst days of his or her life. I´m sure my wife and my 8 children are on the edge of their seats right now wondering what you will decide, Judge Wood, and for how long they will have to be separated from their husband and father.

I think anyone involved in this work needs to pay special attention to the humanity of the guilty. Have you kept in touch with any of those you have sent to prison? Have you by chance written to any of those offenders to find out how they are doing in prison? Have you asked about their families left behind? Are you sure none of them have died in custody because of Covid-19?

I say this not to impose guilt, but to address the command of Jesus in Matthew 25 to care for the least of these. Anyone sentenced to prison in this courtroom is automatically consigned to join those Jesus called outcasts. “I was in prison and you visited me,” is one of the commands of Jesus known as a work of mercy. To write to them and express care and love is a spiritual gift to the letter writer. If any of you fine people I have met, and for whom I pray for every day, opt to write to me in prison, I promise to write back.

While this hearing will highlight the many divisions among defense, prosecution, probation, the gallery and the judge, said divisions are mitigated by the commonalities we all share in our human nature. In fact, this is what matters in these times of uncertainty and suffering.

I am a father and a grandfather. Judge Wood, you are a mother who is devoted to your children. Greg, you and Karl are both fathers who love their children … as much as we love life itself. This is a devotion we share as parents who love the children God has blessed us with. So, in fact, we share a very important common value, one that is at the heart of the teachings in Sacred Scripture: Love of God and Love of Neighbor.

The question we all struggle with is how best to live out our love for God, our children and our neighbors. The seven of us facing sentencing have exposed a tragic flaw — a sin that keeps us from living out some of the most basic elements of Loving One Another … Trident. How does Trident fit into our lives as a component of our common Christian Faith that calls us to Love Our God, our Children, Our Neighbor? Trident is the Opposite of Love. It is a Machine of Mass Destruction, that robs our neighbors of Love and Hope. 

While I have not heard much support for us expressed by this court, my hope is that I have been part of an effort to plant a seed that will sprout and grow in your souls, and eventually bear the fruit of true peace in your hearts. And that all humanity will come together to reject war and Trident and embrace the teachings of Jesus to Love One Another.  

Yesterday Greg Gilluly spoke of the school children and workers at Kings Bay who may have been offended when they saw the spray painted messages on the statues of nuclear weapons at the missile shrine — words such as idol, repent, Love Your Enemies, or workers who saw blood on the sidewalk and crime scene tape on a door.   

But perhaps the action of the 7 of us have and will continue to produce other outcomes.  Maybe some of the schoolchildren asked their parents questions about what they saw. Maybe the dinner table conversation was full of questions from children about why these people spray painted Bible quotes on the statues?  

Maybe school teachers in Camden and Glynn Counties used our witness as a opportunity to have class discussions about dissent as a valuable component of a democracy. Maybe the children asked questions about Trident submarines that had never been asked before.

Judge Wood and Mr. Gilluly, you’re both parents. Perhaps your involvement in our case will have a lasting educational impact on your children. I think you brought some members of your family to our trial, Mr. Gilluly. Maybe somewhere in Brunswick a child is asking his mother:  “Mom, why do we have statues of bombs and missiles at the Navy Base?”  “Those people who spray painted said they were idols.”  Or perhaps a child asked her father:  “Dad, why do we have Trident submarines?  And what would happen if those nuclear missiles were actually used? Wouldn’t a lot of people die?”

And what about the churches in Camden and Glynn Counties. Were there some preachers who courageously made the effort to discuss what our action meant in the context of Jesus who said love your enemies, put away the sword?   

Maybe there have been and will be Sunday school classes that had or will have discussion about the theological issues we raised at Kings Bay.   Judge Wood, yesterday you mentioned the many people who risk their lives to defend our freedom. But, military service is more complicated than the very honorable willingness to give one’s life for a cause.

My father Terrence O’Neill was a Navy veteran during the Korean War and my Marine father-in-law needed inpatient treatment for PTSD in his late 60s.   

We also ask of the soldiers to kill on command, to take the lives of other young men and women who they don’t know, who we call enemies:   That’s a lot to ask of our young people.  Still, so many of us see war as a necessary evil…. but is it? Perhaps some children might inquire about why we carried a banner with Martin Luther King’s image and words. Maybe they googled King to discover his references to the triplets of evil:  Racism, extreme materialism and militarism. Maybe they read his 1967 quote, “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world is my own country.”   Maybe someone is asking why people the court said engaged in prophetic, sacramental and symbolic denuclearization are being dealt with so harshly? Yes, in addition to the shock that Mr. Gilluly cites, there may be far more important benefits that happen because of our action. Dissent —- even if it involves breaking the law —- can be a transformational event. That’s certainly my hope. 

I want to end with a reflection my wife wrote and shared with our children.

There is a scene in Thorton Wilder’s play, Our Town, in which young Emily who has died in childbirth begs to be allowed to go back to see one day of her life. Though advised against it, she chooses the day of her twelfth birthday, an unimportant day, she says.

Yet once she witnesses that “unimportant day” she is struck by how we plow through life, unaware of the many levels of being and feeling that go on all around us.  She asks the stage manager “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?” 

“No,” he says, “Saints and poets maybe… they do some.”

Looking back at my then-17-year-old self in a photo, I felt like Emily. Tan, thin, smiling, my whole life stretched out ahead of me. I am happy in a cloud of unknowing, posed for the future without realizing that life is lived in those day-to-day moments that we so easily take for granted.

I have a friend whose e-mail address is: Beherenow. Although I’ve never told him, I often contemplate what a wise command he sends each time he sends an email.

Be here now.  Through all those days and years of my life so many memories crowd my mind and my heart. Yet here I am, grumbling through school shopping with my three youngest children. Still spending my mental energy on preparing for another day rather than on living the one we have been gifted.

I look at my 17 year old self and I see my daughter, about to turn 17, and my son, 18 and “on his own”, away at college.  I remember them as babies, as toddlers, as middle schoolers.  Not only them, but all of our children who have been making their way through life with us and especially those who have now headed out on their own.

The incredible sweetness of being together for a time, just being, together.

So, here we are, all together on this day. We got thrown into your life, Judge Wood. You didn´t ask. We didn´t ask, but we are here together on this day, in this moment in time. While I have not heard much support for us expressed by this court, my hope is that I have been part of an effort to plant a seed that will sprout and grow in your souls, and eventually bear the fruit of true peace in your hearts. And that all humanity will come together to reject war and Trident and embrace the teachings of Jesus to Love One Another.  Thank You and God Bless You.

TESTIMONY FROM ONE OF PATRICK O’NEILL’S CHARACTER WITNESSES AT HIS SENTENCING, HIS DAUGHTER BERNADETTE NARO
October 16, 2020
Federal Court, Brunswick, Georgia
Good Afternoon. 
I want to begin my testimony today with some of my earliest memories of my dad.  When I was four years old, my parents moved from our small house where the three of us lived, into a much larger house to start a Catholic Worker Community. The extra rooms in our new house became spaces for people who had nowhere else to turn.  Women and children who were in crisis, came to live alongside us. As a kid growing up in a Catholic Worker was essentially normal — it was really the only experience I knew. But now as an adult, as I raise my own child, and make my own life choices, I am consistently more in awe of what sharing their home and their lives intimately with strangers required of my parents. My parents chose to live in this way because of their commitment to living out their Christian faith– their commitment to sharing all that they have with the poor, and to taking personal responsibility for the problems they saw in our world. 
They centered their life around a few questions–Who is Jesus? What was he all about? And, especially what does he require of us?  He taught me to dig into these questions as I grew up and considered what to do with my life. 
My dad also explored this question as a Sunday school teacher at our church.  I remember him asking his students– if Jesus were to come back tomorrow, where do you think we’d find him? My dad’s answer was that we would find Jesus with the poor. With the homeless. Perhaps at the park, waiting in the soup line that my parents organized every Saturday. Or maybe, he was one of the folks my parents invited to join us for dinner on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Right before the big holiday dinners, as my mom put the finishing touches on the food, my dad and I would hop in the minivan and drive downtown to see who was left alone on the streets. Then, my dad would invite them to dinner with us. As you might imagine, we had some interesting characters join us for the Holidays as our guests of honor. 
I share these stories because they exemplify my dad’s character and what is at the root of it. 
Speaking of a character, as a teacher, a large part of my goal is to show my students what it means to be a person of good character. At the Catholic school where I work, we interpret this goal through the lens of our faith. We state that our overarching mission is to form the whole person in the image of Christ. Without question, this is a lofty goal.
I’d like to say to the Court today that my dad had the same aim as he raised 8 children. One example of how he sought to form us in Christ’s image was his conversations with us about how we should treat each other. I have 5 sisters and 2 brothers. When we were younger, and my sister and I would argue, my dad’s approach was to sit me down, stand my sister in front of me and say to me emphatically, “ see your sister in front of you? See her? She is the body of Christ…” He would go on to tell me that bearing those things in mind the only way to treat her was with the utmost love and compassion.  I share this anecdote today because I think it illustrates how my dad views the world and how my dad lives his life. His life is guided by the question of what it means to be a Christian. Not in words, but as a lived reality. 
Today I have a 2 year old, who I know my dad has spoken about before. It has been a beautiful gift to watch my dad now in the role of Grandfather. When I watch him with her, I am reminded of my own childhood. In their interactions, I’m reminded of the ways my dad taught me to behold God’s creation with awe and delight, and of the role we have to fiercely defend anything that threatens to destroy God’s creation.
xxx

RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

from Religion News Service

Catholic worker who broke into naval base to protest nuclear weapons sentenced

Patrick O’Neill is the third of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 to be sentenced by a US District Court judge for trespassing at the Kings Bay Naval Base two years ago in a symbolic act of nuclear disarmament.

October 16, 2020
by Yonat Shimron

(RNS) — Patrick O’Neill, who together with the Rev. Stephen Kelly, cut a padlock to Kings Bay Naval Base in Georgia to protest its stockpile of hundreds of Trident nuclear weapons two years ago, was sentenced Friday (Oct. 16) to 14 months in federal prison.

O’Neill, a 64-year-old North Carolinian who runs a Catholic Worker House that offers destitute women and children a place to stay, said he would appeal.

He is the third of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood and has so far received the lightest sentence. On Thursday, Wood sentenced Kelly, a Jesuit priest, to 33 months —  essentially time he has already spent at the Brunswick County, Georgia, jail. Wood also ordered three years of probation and restitution to both men for their part in the $33,503 worth of damages at the base.

On April 4, 2018, the group, made up of fellow Catholics, cut a padlock and later a security fence at Kings Bay Naval Base, which houses six Trident submarines carrying hundreds of nuclear weapons. They spilled blood on a Navy wall insignia, spray-painted anti-war slogans on a walkway and banged on a monument to nuclear warfare.

Last year, all seven were convicted of destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property, trespass and conspiracy.

“We are bound by the laws of this country,” Wood said. “Part of what you and co-defendants profess is that you want to show courage in violating these laws and doing it, as you say, in the most dramatic way. Well, part of courage is accepting punishment.”

Four other collaborators in the symbolic nuclear disarmament action will go before the judge in November or later.

O’Neill presented three character witnesses before his sentence, including two of his eight children, who testified to their father’s commitment to living out their Christian faith and sharing all they have with the poor. O’Neill and his wife, Mary Rider, run the Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina.

“They centered their life on the questions: Who was Jesus? What was he all about, and especially, what does he require of us?” said Bernadette Naro, O’Neill’s daughter, referring to her parents.

“My dad taught me to dig into these questions … His life is guided by the question of what it means to be a Christian, not in words but in lived reality,” she said.

That testimony appeared to have some influence over Wood. But in the end she judged that the group — and O’Neill who banged on a monument to nuclear weapons with a hammer made from a melted-down gun — endangered their lives and the lives of the people working on the base by breaking in under the cover of night.

O’Neill, a longtime activist and a journalist, gave a lengthy statement before his sentence, lamenting that the court considered nuclear weapons and their potential to bring about an end to civilization irrelevant to the case.

“Rather than criminals, we are messengers, just like the abolitionists were in the face of legalized slavery, or pacifists who went to prison rather than kill,” O’Neill said. “And we took a chance, risked our freedom, and were mischaracterized by this court as threats to the safety of the community.”

O’Neill was given 90 days to report to prison. 

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Kings Bay Plowshares 7 Activists Sentenced for 2018 Anti-Nuclear Protest at Georgia Naval Base

Father Stephen Kelly and Patrick O’Neill were sentenced to nearly three years and 14 months in prison, respectively.

by Brett Wilkins, staff writer

A federal court on Thursday sentenced a Catholic priest to nearly three years in prison for trespassing on a Georgia naval base to protest U.S. nuclear weapons policy, but he could be imminently released due to time served—while on Friday another activist was sentenced in connection with the same demonstration. 

National Catholic Reporter reports Rev. Stephen M. Kelly, a 71-year-old Jesuit priest, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to 33 months’ imprisonment, three years’ probation, and over $33,000 in restitution fees to be paid jointly with other defendants. 

“Father Kelly, it has been clear to me you are sincere in your beliefs,” said Wood. “However, I would be remiss to discount the nature of the offense that we’re looking at today and the risk to safety that you knowingly undertook.”

Because Kelly has already been jailed for 30 months and is eligible for 54 days of annual good behavior credit, he could be released at any time. 

Kelly, a member of the Catholic peace activist group Kings Bay Plowshares 7, entered Kings Bay Naval Base in St. Marys, Georgia with six others at dusk on April 4, 2018. The group chose April 4 because it was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who called the United States government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

The activists—Carmen Trotta, Patrick O’Neill, Martha Hennessy, Liz McAlister, Clare Grady, Father Steve Kelly, and Mark Coalville—said they wanted “to highlight what King called the ‘evil triplets of militarism, racism, and materialism'” and to “make real the prophet Isaiah’s command: ‘beat swords into plowshares.'”

“Armed” with hammers, bottles of their own blood, crime scene tape, and an indictment charging the U.S. government with crimes against peace, the seven splashed the blood on a wall, spray-painted an anti-war slogan on a sidewalk, and hammered away at a monument to nuclear war. They caused minimal damage. 

Kings Bay houses at least six nuclear submarines, each armed with 20 Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) variety. Each missile contains numerous nuclear warheads, providing a thermonuclear force multiplier and overwhelming first-strike capability.

Put simply, Kings Bay’s submarines are capable of killing many millions of human beings and making life on Earth a frozen hellscape for many millions more. 

Kelly—who has spent more than a decade behind bars for numerous acts of peaceful protest over the course of his lifetime—told the court on Thursday that he is a “prisoner of conscience for Christ,” and that he preaches against “the sin that flourishes in weapons of mass destruction.”

“I answer to a higher authority in that my faith… [compels] me to respond to the needs of the poor, oppressed, [and] disenfranchised, in any locality,” Kelly said in a written statement. 

Kelly also invoked the Nuremberg principles—enacted in response to Nazi genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated during World War II—which established the framework of modern international law in a bid to prevent such crimes in the future. 

O’Neill was scheduled to be sentenced on Friday as this article was published. While no media reports have yet appeared, Kings Bay Plowshares 7 tweeted that the 61-year-old was sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and a share of the $33,000 in restitution fees, with credit for some time served. 

As for the other five activists, none except McAlister—who in June was sentenced to time served plus $25 a month in fines—has been sentenced, mostly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Another Kings Bay sub base vandal sentenced to federal prison

BRUNSWICK, Ga. – A North Carolina man convicted of the April 2018 illegal entry and vandalism of Submarine Base Kings Bay has been sentenced to federal prison.

Patrick O’Neill, 63, of Garner, N.C., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to 14 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $33,503.51 in restitution, said Bobby L. Christine, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.

O’Neill, along with six other defendants, was found guilty after a four-day jury trial in October 2019 on charges of conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property, and trespass. He was ordered to serve three years of supervised release after completion of his prison sentence.

There is no parole in the federal system.

“Patrick O’Neill willingly broke into and vandalized a restricted military installation, and brazenly filmed himself and others doing so,” Christine said. “None of this group’s actions is defensible as peaceful protest, and in fact represents wanton destruction of government property and callous disregard for their safety and the safety of all the personnel at Kings Bay.”

As admitted by the defendants during the trial, including O’Neill’s body-worn camera video recording of the activities shown to jurors, the seven entered an outer security fence at the naval installation in St. Marys, Georgia, after cutting a padlock from a gate during the late hours of April 4, 2018. Once through the security fence, the trespassers split into two groups and then damaged and vandalized property inside the facility before being taken into custody by naval security personnel.

O’Neill, a freelance journalist, has a long history of arrests including those related to trespassing and damaging government property.

Stephen Michael Kelly, 71, of Massachusetts, previously was sentenced to 33 months in prison in the case, and Elizabeth McAlister, 80, of New London, Conn., was sentenced to the 17 months, nine days of time already served in the case. The remaining defendants — Mark Peter Colville, 59, of New Haven, Conn.; Clare Therese Grady, 62, of Ithaca, N.Y.; Martha Hennessy, 65, of Perkinsville, Vt.; and Carmen Trotta, 57, of New York, N.Y. — are scheduled for sentencing in November.

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[pre-sentencing article]
NC man protested a danger to humanity. Now he may pay for it in prison

by Ned Barnett

The death of George Floyd in May sparked what is likely the largest protest movement ever. It’s estimated that as many as 26 million people have participated in hundreds of demonstrations against police brutality nationwide.

Among the protesters in Raleigh was Patrick O’Neill, a Catholic activist and an occasional contributor to these pages. The presence of so many young protesters – Black, white and brown – heartened him. “This is the most significant movement since the Vietnam War,” he said. “This has a chance to be sustained.”

For most of the protesters, taking to the streets out of moral outrage was a bracing and fulfilling new experience. For O’Neill, it is a way of life.

A co-founder of the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, O’Neill has been protesting against nuclear weapons, the death penalty, abortion, immigration rights and other social issues for decades, sometimes in a throng of protesters but more often in a small knot of them. He has been arrested more than 25 times, including seven times during anti-war protests at the Pentagon. “I kneel and say the Lord’s Prayer and the cops pick me up before I’m finished,” he said.

Few in the Floyd protests were arrested, despite confrontations with police and property damage in some cities. But O’Neill’s story is different.

On April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., O’Neill and six other members of an anti-nuclear movement known as “The Plowshares” cut a lock and slipped past security at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in southeast Georgia, home to six nuclear-armed Trident submarines. The protesters, ranging in age from 56 to 80, consisted of four men, including a Jesuit priest, and three women. They spray painted antiwar slogans on a walkway and took hammers to statues of weapons of mass destruction. After several hours inside, they were detected and surrendered to security officers.

All seven were convicted of three felonies and a misdemeanor after their group was tried together. One has been sentenced to probation after 18 months in jail. The other six are scheduled to be sentenced in mid-October. O’Neill, who has spent more than two years under house arrest and curfew in Garner, expects to be sentenced to one to two years in federal prison.

O’Neill’s voice carries a trace of his upbringing in New York City, though he has lived in North Carolina since the late 1970s. The father of eight children, all of whom have followed him into social activism, he has been in partnership with his wife Mary Rider, a co-founder of the Catholic Worker House and a social worker, who has also been jailed in connection with protests.

Now, at 64, O’Neill may be going to a federal prison for his civil disobedience. He said the message is worth the cost.

“A lot of people disagree with my tactics, but I think it was important to do it. I think drama has a place,” he said. “I don’t have any regrets about it.”

When he was interviewed on a radio show about the protest, a caller challenged his destruction of government property. He replied with a question: “Why does vandalism outrage you like this and weapons that could destroy the world, you have no opinion about?”

For O’Neill, his group’s action was no different than the Boston Tea Party. But he acknowledges other views: “I’ve told every magistrate and judge: ‘I’m not saying I’m right. I’m saying I did what I thought was right.’ ”

The law condemns deliberate property damage, but morality compels acts of conscience. Sometimes the two collide and consequences follow, but a cause is served, a message is sent and the sacrifice is not in vain. 

xxx

from Yale Daily News

The Church at the End of the World

In 2018, a group of Catholic anti-nuclear activists made national news when they broke into a naval base in Georgia. One of their members — a New Haven resident — now awaits his sentencing.

by Sharla Moody

Mark Colville is relaxed for someone expecting to be sentenced to federal prison in a few weeks. He stands in front of a stove, white hair sticking out from under his hat, cracking eggs on the stove and piercing the yolks with the shells. As he cooks, he talks about his expectations for the hearing, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has forced him to choose between traveling out of state for an in-person hearing or being sentenced via a virtual meeting. He rolls up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, flips the eggs, then adds slices of cheese and hot dogs. He’s not worried, he says as he glances up from the food, even though it’s a less-than-ideal situation. He’s been arrested as an activist so many times he’s lost count, and he has spent enough time behind bars that he feels prepared for what awaits him. He places the eggs and hot dogs between two bagel halves and wraps them in aluminum foil before handing them off to another man, who will distribute them to hungry people standing outside in the rain. Then, he cracks more eggs.

On April 4, 2018, Colville, who lives in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood, and six other Catholic activists who call themselves the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, broke into Kings Bay Naval Base in Camden County, Georgia. Among the activists were a Jesuit priest, a couple of grandparents and a journalist. Under the cover of darkness, they cut a padlock on a gate and replaced it with another to cover their tracks. They walked several miles by moonlight to a bunker that stores nuclear weapons and vandalized models of nuclear missiles. They were convicted as a group of three felonies and one misdemeanor — conspiracy, destruction of government property, depredation and trespassing. As of November 2020, six of them have already been sentenced. Colville expects to be sentenced in December.

“I’m worried about the end of the world,” Colville chuckled. “I’m not worried about going to prison.”

RESISTING AN IDOLATROUS ABOMINATION 

Plowshares began as a Christian pacifist and anti-nuclear weapons movement in 1980, when Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan and seven others protested nuclear weapons by breaking into the General Electric Re-entry Division in Pennsylvania, where vehicles for the Minuteman III missile were manufactured. There, they vandalized trucks and documents and prayed for peace. Since then, there have been over 70 Plowshares actions and protests around the world, according to research compiled by Arthur Laffin, an activist who has written two books about the movement.

Colville, who has been involved in peace and progressive activism his entire life, recounted that the Plowshares 7 began “whispering to each other about possibly doing an action” at Berrigan’s funeral in 2016. “I think part of my motivation was in fact Dan Berrigan’s death,” he said. “I felt like that was a good way to honor him, to take up the hammer again and do a Plowshares action.”

Colville believes that nuclear weapons and the United States’ nuclear policy are tantamount to religious idolatry.

“Nuclear weapons represent [a] perpetual posture of hostility … that amounts to a compulsory religion that us citizens are forced to abide by,” Colville said.

Anti-nuclear activism is not the type of action typically associated with Catholicism. In the United States, Catholic activism usually concerns pro-life or sexual ethics issues and has a politically conservative bend. But pacifist activism has a place in Catholicism, as evidenced by the Kings Bay Plowshares 7’s work, which represents just one group action in the Plowshares movement. In 1984, two members of the Plowshares movement were sentenced to 18 years in prison for breaking into missile silos and launch sites in Missouri.

“If you look at nuclear policy in this country, it does have all the elements of religion,” Colville said. “We’re talking about ultimate sovereignty that a nation claims over the whole planet, and to wield that power puts us into a situation of basically idolatry as a social practice in the United States.”

The Plowshares movement takes its name from a few verses in Isaiah, an Old Testament prophetic book in the Bible. Chapter 2, verse 4 of Isaiah states: “He [God] shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” A plowshare is a broad blade used to turn soil during tilling and plowing. The phrase “swords to plowshares” has been adopted by anti-war, anti-nuclearism and veteran advocates alike to represent the transformation of violence to nonviolence.

Plowshares asserts that militarism and nuclear arms are equivalent to religious idolatry, arguing that the direct funding of weapons is a misappropriation of money that would better serve the poor. These ideas inspired actions such as the 2018 protest at a Georgia naval port where U.S. Navy submarines armed with Trident nuclear missiles are stored. The Trident missile is armed with thermonuclear bomb warheads, which are each a thousand times more destructive than atomic bombs. The U.S. Navy has a fleet of fourteen Ohio-class nuclear submarines that carry these missiles. In 2011, the Obama administration budgeted $70.5 million per Trident missile.

Plowshares believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s teaching from a 1967 speech that the triplet evils of racism, poverty and war must be addressed holistically.

“I look in my neighborhood and see this place that has been laid waste by the military and this idolatrous commitment to funding this idolatrous abomination. That’s a direct theft from the poor,” Colville said. “My daily life and lifestyles revolves around trying to bind up some of the wounds that are caused by this unbridled commitment to militarism.”

This militarism, Colville believes, has been so pervasive throughout American culture that it must be actively resisted. “We’ve been living under the shadow of nuclear weapons for 75 years. It can feel like this is a permanent reality,” Colville said. “You can really start to absorb the idea that these weapons are approved of by God.”

CONVERTING DEADLY FORCE

The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 planned for their action in Georgia for about two years, Colville said. The planning involved discerning whether they should perform the action and training for how to diffuse situations.

“It was a long discernment process,” Plowshares 7 activist Martha Hennessy said. Hennessy is a retired occupational therapist, grandmother of eight and community worker who has been arrested and imprisoned several times for protesting nuclear power, drone use, the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and the use of starvation as a weapon of war in Yemen. “I’ve grown up with this nuclear threat. It’s imperative that we pay attention to this nuclear holocaust.”

 Building community beforehand was integral to the protest. “I was scared to death,” Colville said. “But again, we do it in community. We spent two years discerning this as a group.”

Community as the foundation of progressive Catholic thought goes back to Dorothy Day, an American anarchist and Catholic convert who was influential in Catholic pacifism. In 1933, she started the progressive Catholic Worker Movement, which was centered around building local communities. Those involved in the movement live together and dedicate their time to local social justice causes. Day also wrote prolifically in support of pacifism. Today, the Vatican is considering Day for possible canonization into sainthood — in Catholicism, saints are people recognized for their holiness and closeness to God, and they are the only people the Catholic Church confidently and officially claims are in Heaven. Hennessy is Day’s granddaughter.

As the day of their action rapidly approached, Colville felt strangely calm. It was Colville’s third time participating in a Plowshares action, and he felt somewhat ready.

“I kind of knew what to expect,” he said. “But I was, particularly because of the deadly force zone, trying to bargain with God. ‘Let this night end in a jail cell and not a morgue or a hospital.’”

 The Plowshares group entered the Kings Bay Naval Base near a dirt road at what looked like a disused gate. They broke the lock at that gate and replaced it with another one to avoid being detected. Then, they followed the road for several miles in the dark before splitting up.

“Every 10 or 15 minutes you got this recorded announcement saying you were in a deadly force zone,” Colville recalled. “It was just really chilling to hear that announcement. Our group, we pray a lot. On the walk we were praying the rosary, a litany of the saints, a lot of traditional Catholic prayers. That was a real calming sort of thing for all of us.”

Colville and Patrick O’Neill, a hospital chaplain in North Carolina, parted from the group to see what they perceived as a shrine to nuclearism — a collection of missile models on the base. It was still dark, but they soon found themselves on a busier road in the base. Cars passed periodically.

“I said to Patrick, ‘I need a rest.’ I needed a psychological break before going forward, I needed to really get my head and my heart into this before we went further,” Colville said. “We sat down, did a little talking and strategizing, a little prayer, had granola bars. Then when I was ready, we ran across the street and hid behind a tree and waited for the right moment. And then we went over there. Once we got there and pulled out our tools and started doing the action, that’s when I found my legs and it became a lot easier once we got there.”

After writing “Thou shalt not kill” and “blasphemy” on the missile replicas with markers, they prayed and waited to be arrested. Other members of the group entered a bunker where nuclear weapons were stored, as well as an administrative building, where they left a copy of The Doomsday Machine, a book by Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers.

The Plowshare members’ real fear — aside from being killed — was being arrested before they could complete their protest, Colville said. In this case, they were able to reach each location before they were arrested. According to Colville, their protest was so markedly peaceful that officers waited until they finished vandalizing the last model to make arrests.

“We go into these actions with the intent of doing conversion, converting swords into plowshares,” Colville said. “So, it’s not like we were trying to make trash out of these things. We were symbolically converting them into something useful for life.”

O’Neill, who is garrulous and good-natured even over the phone, struck up a conversation with one of the officers who arrested their group. Their conversation reached significant depths, with the officer sharing that he had experienced the death of his two-year-old son. O’Neill believes he was able to “convert” part of Kings Bay and transform it into something other than a base for nuclear weapons. 

“The site … was really not a deadly force zone,” Colville said. “We converted it into something other than a deadly force zone, at least for those moments.”

Hennessy, O’Neill and Colville all believe that in court, these details were brushed aside in favor of a narrative that depicted them as criminals rather than activists. They spent varying amounts of time — for Colville, over a year — in the Camden County Jail in Georgia.

“I do time well,” O’Neill said. “I look at it as an opportunity to do ministry. I make friends, I like to read, I like to write, I run every day. I don’t get bored in prison. I make the best of it.”

 “She’s sentenced literally hundreds of people to thousands of years in prison,” O’Neill said. “To be in a job where you do that — I think it’s hard not to see the person on the other side of the bench as being someone you have to punish, and they need to be punished, and all of that is in the interest of justice. So she [sent] a hospital chaplain with eight children, whose youngest child has Down’s syndrome, who runs a Catholic Worker house and works with the poor, and basically devotes his life to peace and justice work … to prison for a year and two months. She still had to punish me pretty severely for what I did.” O’Neill’s daughter provided character testimony in her father’s defense.

The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 activists faced up to 20 years in federal prison for their action. So far, the longest sentence given to any of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 activists has been 33 months in federal prison for Fr. Steve Kelly, a Jesuit priest. Of the 20 years O’Neill could have been sentenced to, he was only given 14 months. Colville expects to receive between 21 and 27 months in prison, plus restitution, which he says he will refuse to pay.

“Hopefully I’ll get to go along for the canonization [ceremony for Day] and not go to federal prison for too long,” Hennessy said. On Nov. 13, Hennessy was sentenced to 10 months in prison, the lightest sentence received by any of them so far.

WAR, DOGMA AND CATHOLIC LIFE

Plowshares actions are not explicitly condemned or condoned by the Catholic Church, though the Church views nuclearism unfavorably. In 2004, the Church published the “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” which stated that nuclear deterrence must be replaced with disarmament. According to Carlos Eire, the Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale, every pope since the invention of nuclear weapons has stated that they should not be used. While popes’ condemnations of nuclear weapons aren’t rigidly dogmatic, they should have great moral weight to the beliefs of Catholics. This moral weight resonates deeply with Colville.

 “I have to go to the site where sins are committed, where idolatry is practiced,” Colville said. “Idolatry isn’t to be avoided or argued against or simply ignored. It’s not about nonparticipation when it comes to idolatry. Idols are to be smashed. That’s a basic call of faith in the Bible.”

For issues not dogmatically defined by the church, individual Catholics are able to form their own opinions in good conscience with church teachings. The Catholic Church teaches that there is such a thing as “just war,” and Catholic theologians like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas developed early versions of just war theory. But during the Vietnam War, opinion began to shift. Some Catholics, like Berrigan, were imprisoned for burning draft cards.

“There are plenty of Catholic clergy who have been arrested, and not just for the nuclear weapons issues, but other issues that fall in the area of ethics,” Eire said. “People are on a spectrum in the Catholic Church, and they don’t have to match up.”

But the idea of just modern warfare is waning among Catholics, even those at the head of the church. In his October encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis wrote, “We can no longer think of war as a solution, because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits. In view of this, it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war’. Never again war!” Whether opposition to nuclear weapons justifies breaking a nation’s laws, however, remains undetermined by the Church.

“To be a Catholic in this country naturally means that we must resist this government,” Colville said. “It’s imperialist, violent and incredibly racist. As a Catholic, I have to have a response to that.”

Pacifism, anti-militarism and advocating for the disadvantaged can exist alongside more traditional Catholic stances of being pro-life, anti-euthanasia and anti-death penalty, Eire explained, and holding these beliefs has been described by Catholics as a “seamless garment” of views of the sanctity of life, or “consistent life ethic.” Pope St. John Paul II stressed the importance of a consistent life ethic but upheld just war theory after witnessing the Nazi invasion of Poland as a young man, Eire added.

Conservative critics of Catholic pacifism have argued that war is necessary in cases of terror states and in cases of religious persecution. Others sympathetic to Plowshares’ goals worry that its confrontational methods alienate potential supporters. Still, Plowshares activists view their efforts as intertwined with their faith and as actions they are morally obligated to carry out.

“I like to study the works of mercy, the spiritual works of mercy, relating to resistance,” Hennessy said. “Admonish the sinner, instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, comfort the sorrowful, bear wrongs patiently, forgive all injuries, pray for the living and dead. And then of course the seven corporal works of mercy, which is what we do at the [Catholic Worker] house: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, visit the sick, bury the dead.”

Hennessy, O’Neill and Colville are all involved in Catholic Worker communities and live according to these spiritual works of mercy. Colville lives in the Amistad House, a Catholic Worker house in the Hill neighborhood of New Haven, where he, his wife Luz Catarineau-Colville, and others cook and distribute meals for over 60 people a day.

“The experience of running a Catholic Worker is all about day-to-day living, trying to simplify your lifestyle and voluntary poverty, looking for peace and justice for all,” Catarineau-Colville said.

In many ways, Colville’s work and Amistad House seem to embody the most radical interpretation of Catholicism. But Colville, Hennessy and O’Neill view the Catholic Worker Movement, as well as the actions of Plowshares, as the correct mode of living according to Catholic principles in this age.

Colville opens another carton of eggs and cracks them onto the stove. The oil sizzles and sputters, and he cracks the yolks with the shells. Later today, he will repeat this for lunch for the people who gather outside of Amistad House. Whatever tomorrow may hold for him, he isn’t concerned. The two greatest commandments, after all, are to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself — Colville leads a life oriented around these missions. He wraps another sandwich in foil and hands it off. 

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from lastgaffe.com

A Birthday Behind Bars
March 24, 2021
by Ted Vaden
(Note: The Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay is the U.S. Atlantic Fleet’s home port for Ohio class fleet ballistic missile nuclear submarines capable of being armed with Trident missile nuclear weapons. It covers about 16,000 acres. Called “boomers” by Navymen, the subs stretch as long as two football fields. Each Trident carries eight nuclear warheads and each can be sent to a different target. One Trident vessel carries the power of 5,000 bombs like the one that destroyed Hiroshima. The subs can also carry cruise missiles and as many as 100 SEALS.)
 I would like to tell you about my friend Patrick O’Neill. 
Patrick and his wife Mary live in Garner, N.C., where they operate a Catholic relief shelter for women and children in crisis. The couple raised 8 children of their own there, and they now are proud grandparents.
Next Saturday, March 27, Patrick turns 65. He will observe his birthday living in a prison cellblock at the Oakton Federal Correction Institute in Lisbon, Ohio, where he is serving a 14-month sentence for breaking into a U.S. Navy base to protest nuclear weapons.
Patrick is a man of unimaginable faith and adherence to his convictions. A longtime pacifist, he is one of the so-called Kings Bay Plowshares 7, a group of peace activists who on April 4, 2018, cut through a security fence and slipped into the King’s Bay Naval Submarine Base in St. Mary’s, Ga. King’s Bay is the world’s largest nuclear sub facility, where six Trident submarines bearing nuclear-tipped missiles are berthed.
The group of activists chose the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to protest the nuclear weapons stored at King’s Bay. Patrick was apprehended banging on a monument to nuclear warfare with a hammer made of melted-down guns. 
The seven protestors, all Catholic pacifists, were convicted in 2019 in federal court in Georgia, on charges of conspiracy, trespassing and damage to government property. They pleaded not guilty, saying they had entered the base not to commit a crime but to prevent one – “omnicide,” from nuclear warfare. They were sentenced last fall to terms ranging up to 33 months. Patrick was sentenced to 14 months and entered the Ohio prison on Jan. 14. With time served and good behavior, he could be released in 10 months.
Even though Patrick is in a low-security facility, his incarceration has been anything but easy. First, there is the threat of COVID-19 infection. Hundreds of inmates and staff in the Elkton facility have been infected, and nine inmates have died of COVID. A federal judge denied Patrick’s request to delay the start of his sentence until vaccines would be available for inmates.
Because of the infection, the prison is in lockdown, which means prisoners cannot receive visitors and are confined to their cellblock. “My block includes a range of 110-120 men living in a room with bodies always in constant motion as men move about looking to pass time in meaningful ways,” he wrote in a recent letter to supporters. “Many guys speak too loudly and there’s a public address system where guards make shrieking, sometimes shocking announcements throughout the day. The sensory overload is relentless, something akin to low-level torture.”
Patrick reports that many of the inmates are in prison for sex offenses – not for touching children or for manufacturing porn, but for viewing or sharing it on computers. They receive little or no rehabilitation and are treated by guards and other inmates as the lowest caste in prison society. 
It is also a race-reversal society. “Here, in an ironic reversal of fortune, whites are second-class citizens, so I have to learn and follow the rules, rules which are made by the inmates,” he writes. “I see it as my required affirmative action.”
Patrick is an indefatigable spirit. I first came to know him 28 years ago, when he was a reporter at The Chapel Hill News, where I was editor. He covered UNC like a bloodhound, producing such scoops as the story that 50 coaches and Ram’s Club officials were receiving free loaner cars from 45 auto dealers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. Among the beneficiaries were basketball coach Dean Smith (a Cadillac Sedan de Ville) and former star Phil Ford. The dealers were made members of the Rams Club and given free season’s tickets to football and basketball games. 
Within a month after Patrick’s stories appeared, UNC cancelled the program. 
Another Patrick story was about cars with Rams Club stickers being allowed to park in fire lanes outside Kenan Stadium on football Saturdays. Shortly after, then-Athletics Director John Swofford (now ACC Commissioner) encountered me on campus to ask why the newspaper was so negative about the athletics program. I told Swofford we were just covering the news and told Patrick to keep doing his job – which was not necessary to tell him. 
Over the years, Patrick has continued as a freelance journalist, but he has devoted himself foremost to his Catholic activism protesting nuclear arms, the death penalty, racial injustice and mistreatment of immigrants. In his peace work, all in the form of nonviolent protest, he has served more than two years in jail and prison, even before this current term.
After Patrick was sentenced last October, he emerged from the courthouse with an upbeat attitude. The judge, moved by testimony from Patrick’s children and others, gave him a lesser sentence than the 26 months allowed by law. 
He said then: “I’m pleased with the outcome. I’m sad that I’m going to be away from my family for quite a while, but I think that the purpose of the Kings Bay Plowshares was to be willing to face the possibility of redemptive suffering, and so it is. It’s not the most severe thing. It’s certainly something that I can tolerate.”
In prison, not surprisingly, he has been an advocate for his fellow inmates, seeking better treatment and more opportunity for pastoral care. He says he sees his sacrifice as a blessing:
“I pray in gratitude each morning for redemptive suffering and humility. The unpleasantness of solitary is also a gift, as I experience a small taste of the suffering that most human beings face every day all over the world. I hope to feel a little more empathy for my sisters and brothers who barely survive in the world.” 
Only Patrick O’Neill would see forced isolation in a COVID-invested prison as a gift. 
Happy Birthday, Patrick. Happy Easter.