Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares ll Trial
July 17, 2003

Talking Points

These talking points could be used in support of the three Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters who are awaiting sentencing in Federal District Court in Denver. The information may be helpful for letters to the editor of your local paper, op-ed pieces, inclusion in prayer vigils, or other writings.

  • Sisters Ardeth Platte OP, Carol Gilbert OP and Jackie Hudson OP are members of the Grand Rapids Dominicans (Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, formally).
  • The Sisters were arrested on October 6, 2002 after entering a missile silo to (in their words) "unmask the false religion and worship of national security."
  • The Sisters were convicted on April 7, 2003 after a weeklong trial in Federal District Court in Denver, Colorado. The verdict sheets from the jury stated as follows: Count One ... Title 18, US Code Section 2155, Destruction of National Defense Materials, National Defense Premises, OR National Defense Utilities (jury finding: Guilty) and Count Two ... Title 18 US Code Section 1361, Damaging U.S. property (jury finding: Guilty). In the grand jury indictment these offenses were described as injury/interference/obstruction of the national defense and injury of property of the United States.
  • Sentencing is set for July 25, 2003: Sister Carol at 10:00AM, Sister Jackie at 11:00 AM and Sister Ardeth at 1:30 PM (Denver time). There has been some indication that the sentencing hearings might be combined, but as yet there is no confirmation of that change.
  • Prosecutor Robert Brown's written statement to the Court on April 14th notes sentencing guidelines of 78 - 97 months for Sisters Carol and Ardeth and 70 - 87 or 63 - 78 months for Sister Jackie. The preliminary sentence investigation and reports to the judge note that Sister Jackie faces 70 to 87 months, Sister Carol faces 78 to 97 months and Sister Ardeth faces 92 to 115 months. (this information is from the Sisters) According to lawyers representing the Sisters, those sentences would be among the harshest punishments ever handed down for what amounts to a trespassing case with damage done to a section of chain-link fence.
  • Letters to Judge Robert Blackburn in advance of sentencing were due by May 30. They were to be sent to The Honorable Robert Blackburn c/o Susan M. Heckman, Senior U.S. Probation Officer -- 1961 Stout Street, Suite 525, Denver CO 80294-0101.
  • Further description of the actions and motivation of the Sisters:
    • Early in the morning of October 6, 2002, the first anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, the Sisters entered the inner enclosure around a Minuteman III missile site near Greeley, Colorado.
    • The Sisters were dressed in white "mop-up/hazmat" suits with CWIT (Citizens Weapons Inspection Team) printed on the back and "Disarmament Specialist" printed on the front.
    • The Sisters' action was prompted by U.S. determination to expose weapons of mass destruction in other countries. They believed it their duty to expose weapons of mass destruction in the U.S.
    • They symbolically disarmed the missile with household hammers (tapping on the silo's 110-ton concrete lid and on the rusty tracks on which the lid would slide open in the event the missile was launched) and their own blood (poured from plastic baby bottles onto the silo walls and the tracks in the shape of crosses), and cut a section of chain link fence in order to lay open the site for public inspection. Following these actions they prayed and sang hymns at the site.
    • Minuteman III missiles have three 335-kiloton nuclear warheads. One missile has 80 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The U.S. has approximately 500 Minuteman III missiles on alert in the Great Plains.
  • Two Air Force colonels (both prosecution witnesses) testified at trial that the Sisters had never actually interfered with or obstructed national defense. The missile could have been fired - and still can be fired - despite their presence and action at the site.
  • The Sisters belong to the Plowshares Movement, an international disarmament movement inspired by Isaiah 2:4 to "beat swords into plowshares." Plowshares actions are characterized by the use of hammers to symbolically disarm parts of U.S. first-strike nuclear weapons systems and blood to represent the deaths such weapons can cause. The Sisters spent nine months planning the action, a period of discernment and preparation in the work of nonviolent resistance.
  • Sister Jackie Hudson belongs to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action and lives in Bremerton, Washington. Sisters Ardeth and Carol live at Jonah House, in one of Baltimore's poorest neighborhoods.
  • Letters sent to the Sisters c/o the Motherhouse of the Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters (2025 East Fulton Street, Grand Rapids MI 49503-3895) will be forwarded as quickly as possible. The Sisters are anticipating a period of time between sentencing and assignment when it will be difficult to get written communications to them. After they are assigned to a federal detention facility their address will be available through the Grand Rapids Dominicans.
  • Sisters Carol, Jackie and Ardeth urge one major response from people who ask what they can do: "From every direction, hold our government accountable for disarmament of all of the U.S. weapons of mass destruction, ban the barbaric war-making forever, establish an economy that allows for others to live with basic human necessities (this will also save the environment from the ravages of military industrial complex contamination and destruction)."
  • TEXT OF STATEMENT CARRIED INTO ACTION SITE:
"We, women religious, naming ourselves SACRED EARTH AND SPACE PLOWSHARES II, come to Colorado to unmask the false religion and worship of national security so evident at Buckley AFB in Aurora, the Missile Silos, and in Colorado Springs: Schreiver AFB (the Space Warfare Center), the Air Force Space Command Center at Peterson AFB, Cheyenne Mountain (NORAD), and the Air Force Academy. We reject the mission of these along with the U.S. Space Command and Stratcom in Omaha, NE. "We come in the name of Truth, an-Nur, the Light. God alone is Master of Space, of the heavens that 'pour forth speech--There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard' (Ps. 19:2), a voice that proclaims world community, not domination of the world's economy; peace, not planning for space warfare. "We hope in the light of that Word to name things what they are, to unmask the lies, abuses, and racism hidden in the rhetoric of patriotism, security and moral superiority. We reject the U.S. Space Command Vision for 2020--to dominate space for military operations; to exploit space as a U.S. 4th frontier, making all other nations vulnerable to U.S. conventional and nuclear attacks; to integrate space forces for war-fighting; to abuse the Aleutian Islands and other lands with interceptors and spy satellites and to waste more billions and billions of dollars and more human and material resources, causing the destruction of Earth and desecration of Space."We walk in the name of the Shepherd, ar-Rashid, the One who leads us on the path to justice for the "have-nots" rather than military power to "deny others the use of space" and even of their own resources. We walk unafraid."We trust in this Shepherd who is also the Way of active nonviolence and generous sharing that will lead to true security."We act in the many names of God the Compassionate, ar-Rahim: our Life, our Peace, our Healer to transform swords into plowshares and our violence and greed into care for the whole community of earth and sky, not as masters but as servants and friends."We pray in the name of al-Qabid, the One who holds the whole world, who said, 'I will do whatever you ask in my name' (John 14:13).
  • Quotes:
    • As Roman Catholic sisters, we feel an urgency to break our complicity and sound an alarm to the madness of these times. We must abide by God's law, which challenges the United States government on both the national and international levels. We in the U.S. are losing our humanity. We pray that this action may bring us back to our human hearts. (Sisters Carol Gilbert OP, Jackie Hudson OP and Ardeth Platte OP)

     

    • Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation. Justice in the World (1971)

     

    • The more sensitive we become to the suffering of other women and indeed of all who are oppressed, the more we will realize that their oppression is linked with other such destructive forces in our world as war, nuclear armament, racism, materialism, exploitation, and environmental pollution. As women, we will find ourselves opposing, not only in our hearts and heads, but in our words and deeds, all death-dealing situations and structures, for are we not by nature committed to giving life?...Today we are aware that women's responsibility for life must flow over into the struggle against the destruction of all life by the oppressive powers in society, and against everything that threatens true human living conditions for all men and women. This is a call to us Dominican women to be, in our prophetic, compassionate proclaiming of the Gospel, life-givers in a world bent on its own destruction. (Mary O'Driscoll OP, Dominican Women in Today's World (Dominican Ashram, September, 1990)

     

    • In the words of our Holy Father, we need a "moral about face." The whole world must summon the moral courage and technical means to say "no" to nuclear conflict; "no" to weapons of mass destruction; "no" to an arms race which robs the poor and the vulnerable; and "no" to the moral danger of a nuclear age which places before humankind indefensible choices of constant terror or surrender. Peacemaking is not an optional commitment. It is a requirement of our faith. We are called to be peacemakers, not by some movement of the moment, but by our Lord Jesus. The content and context of our peacemaking is set, not by some political agenda or ideological program, but by the teaching of his Church. The Challenge of Peace, #333 (US Catholic Bishops, 1986)

     

    • The [people] of our time must realize that they will have to give a somber reckoning for their deeds of war. For the course of the future will depend largely on the decisions they make today. The Church in the Modern World (#80)

     

    • The virtue of patriotism means that as citizens we respect and honor our country, but our very love and loyalty make us examine carefully and regularly its role in world affairs, asking that it live up to its full potential as an agent of peace with justice for all people. "Citizens must cultivate a generous and loyal spirit of patriotism, but without being narrow-minded. This means that they will always direct their attention to the good of the whole human family, united by the different ties which bind together races, people, and nations." The Challenge of Peace (#327)