by: Riverside Ploughshares
 | Four Plowshares activists throw their blood onto the vertical missile launch hatches on the deck of the USS Philippine Sea. The USS Philippine Sea was the first US Navy vessel to launch missiles at Afghanistan following 11 September, 2001. Names of those pictured, L to R : Brian Buckley, Mark Colville, Sister Susan Clarkson, Joan Gregory. .
PHOTO: Amy Goodman , |
New York: On Sunday, 25 May, 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 six children, said that “We cannot love neighbour 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.
Contacts:
+1 212 234 2447 Elmer Maas/Susan Crane
+1 201 264 4424 Matt Daloisio
USm +1 718 877 8637 / +1 212 228 0450 Melissa Jameson
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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 neighbours, 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.
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