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War Resisters League
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 25, 2003
6:53 PM
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CONTACT: War Resisters League
Elmer Maas/Susan Crane, 212-234-2447
Matt Daloisio, 201-264-4424
Melissa Jameson, 718-877-8637 / 212-228-0450
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Four Catholic Workers Disarm Ship During Fleet Week
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NEW YORK
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May 25 - On Sunday, May 25, at about 4 pm, four Catholic Workers, calling themselves
the Riverside Ploughshares, went aboard the USS Philippine Sea during the
16th Annual Fleet Week hosted by the Intrepid Museum in New York City.
During a tour of the USS Philippine Sea, Sr. Susan Clarkson, Mark Colville,
Brian Buckley, and Joan Gregory poured their blood and hammered on the
missile hatches that hold Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. Kneeling on top of the
missile hatches, Mark Colville held up pictures of Iraqi children who had
been injured and maimed by US weapons. Mark read the statement the group had
written, and read from the scriptures. Brian unfurled their banner which
read, "Riverside Ploughshares: Disarm and Choose Life."
The Catholic Workers said that they came to the Fleet Week event to enflesh the words of the prophet Isaiah to "hammer swords into plowshares." They believe that nonviolence will lead to peace, and that
violence will only lead to more violence. They were arrested and
escorted
off the ship into an awaiting unmarked blue van. The tour that the
Catholic Workers were on was cut
short.
Tomahawk cruise missiles are long range missiles that fly at a low altitude
and therefore are difficult to detect. The USS Philippine Sea has launched
Tomahawk cruise missiles against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Yugoslavia. The ship has also been used to enforce the sanctions
against
Iraq.
Mark Colville, who lives at the Amistad Catholic Worker community in
Connecticut, father of 6 children, said that "We cannot love neighbor or
enemy without disarming ourselves. We cannot serve the poor without
defending them against the violence of the state." We cannot affirm life
without standing directly, nonviolently in confrontation with all that deals
death."
The Catholic Worker Movement, founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in
1933, is grounded in a firm belief in the God-given dignity of every human
person. Today over 185 Catholic Worker communities remain committed to
nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless,
exiled, hungry, and foresaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest
injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.
Statement and Biographies Follow. Photos available Monday at
www.warresisters.org/riversideplowshares.htm
Riverside Ploughshares Statement
Fleet Week, New York City, May 2003
We come here today to enflesh the prophecy from Isaiah, "They shall beat
their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks" (2:4).
With hammers we have initiated the process of disarming this battle ship, of
transforming this carrier of mass destruction into a vessel for peace. The
USS Philippine Sea uses Tomahawk cruise missiles, depleted uranium munitions
and the Aegis radar system to enforce the US Empire's will on other nations
and regions. We pour our blood on this ship to reveal the blood of the
innocent already shed by the use of this weaponry. We also pour our blood
to repent for our complicity in the pervasive violence of our world.
We are trying to follow Jesus Christ's commandments to love our enemies and
neighbors, to forgive those who do us harm and to repent. We seek to stop
the injury of war on the human family and heal our communities by living
nonviolently and seeking justice for all. The peace and security that comes
from an empire wielding weapons of war and intimidation are false and
illusory. With hammers we disarm this weapon of mass destruction and with
blood we reveal its purpose.
In the spirit of Dorothy Day, who co-founded with Peter Maurin, the Catholic
Worker in New York City seventy years ago, we try in our daily lives to
practice the Works of Mercy, set out in Matthew, Chapter 25. We feel that
to follow God's will we must do more than serve the broken of our society.
It is also our duty to challenge, as Christ did, that which causes poverty.
Until we convert weapons that end life into tools that enhance life, poverty
will continue to cripple our society. For this we pray and for this we act. We are Susan Clarkson, Mark Colville, Joan Gregory and Brian Buckley from
urban and rural Catholic Worker communities.
Susan Clarkson
Mark Colville
Joan Gregory
Brian Buckley
Riverside Ploughshares Biographies
Fleet Week, May 25, 2003, New York City
"I feel urged to act today because of the exposure I've had over the past
three years to the charism of the Catholic Worker. The recent horrors of
the massacres in Afghanistan and Iraq, the iniquitous sanctions imposed on
Iraq since the first Gulf War, and my own Government's shameful alliance
with the US, against the wishes of the majority of the British public,
compels me to take this step of symbolic and practical disarmament, united
with my American brothers and sisters." Sr. Susan
Clarkson
Sister Susan Clarkson, (56) was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England. She
has been in her religious congregation for thirty-seven years and has been a
member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker community in Washington DC since
May 2002. She sees her part in this ploughshares action as a coming
together of many strands in her life: her religious vocation; peace activism
in Britain; long time membership of the British Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament; an M.A in Peace Studies; work with young people in the
industrial North of England and with homeless people in London.
"The example of Christ is clear: We cannot love neighbor or enemy without
disarming ourselves. We cannot serve the poor without defending them
against the violence of the state. We cannot affirm life without standing
directly, nonviolently in confrontation with all that deals death. War is
the worship of death. Preparation for war is the denial of God. Therefore
I join the Riverside Ploughshares in an act of faith, offered to God as a
plea for the lives of my children, and all children. Disarm. Choose Life.
AMEN."
Mark Colville
Mark Colville, 41, is a member of the Amistad Catholic Worker Community in
New Haven, Connecticut. He and his wife, Luz, have been married for 13
years and are the parents of 6 children ranging in age from 7 months to 15
years. Mark's commitment to nonviolence and peacemaking is rooted in the
Catholic faith and nourished by prayer and the daily practice of the Works
of Mercy.
"Thank you to those who have showed us the will of the spirit through their
obedience to truth and struggle for justice. To all who are victimized by
our complicity, please forgive us."
Brian
Buckley
Brian Buckley lives and works at Little Flower Catholic Worker farm in
central Virginia. He was born and raised in Asia, and taught English in
Africa with the Peace Corps.
"When falsehood and domination are so prevalent in our government, I must
stand up for truth and nonviolence. We must disarm and choose life."
Joan Gregory
Joan Gregory, 70, lives at the Peter Maurin Catholic Worker Farm in New
York. She was in religious life for 15 years, later married and now has two
children. She has been a teacher and administrator in New York state
schools and institutions for 25 years.
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