"KAIROS”

is a Greek word meaning "the critical time", "the time when things might happen".  In this hour of kairos, a time of both crisis and opportunity, the Kairos Plowshares wish to respond with faith and hope against the powers of imperial domination and greed.

"PLOWSHARE"

 is the cutting blade of a plow₁ a tool used for the sustenance of life.  The biblical prophecy of Isaiah urges nations to "beat swords into plow­shares and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”  Since 1980 there have been 30 Plowshares disarmament actions - 7 of them at Groton or Quonset Point (EB)- in which people have beat with hammers and poured their own blood on first-strike weapons components, as a symbolical enactment of the prophecy.

 Sr. KATHLEEN MAIRE (44) is a Franciscan Sister of Allegany NY, who has minis­tered to migrants, seasonal farmworkers, homeless women, Aymara Indians in Bolivia; in 1987 she spent 8 months in Nicaragua with Witness for Peace.

 Sr. ANNE MONTGOMERY (61) is a Religious of the Sacred Heart from New York City. For over 35 years she has taught children and adults, most recently in East Harlem. Her concern about the connection between militarism and poverty drew her into peace work in 1978.

TRIDENT submarines being built currently by General Dynamics/Electric Boat in Groton CT and Quonset RI will be armed with the new, more accurate Trident II (D-5) missile.  Each submarine will carry 24 D-5 missiles in its hatches; each missile will carry 10 to 14 warheads.   The combined accuracy and power of the Trident II missile makes it a crucial component of the deadly U.S. first-strike arsenal...and plans to launch a first strike in a nuclear war.  This is illegal, immoral, and genocidal.  The devastation it would wreak would be irre­versible; such a war means the end of creation.  This arsenal also supports intervention in the affairs of other nations in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle Fast, etc.  This state terrorism leads to economic oppression, human rights violations, and outright murder.  Besides the people of these coun­tries, the poor of our own country are victims of this arms race.  Those who suffer and die because of hunger, homelessness, or curable disease are victims of this costly arms race.

THE KAIROS PLOWSHARES - Sisters Anne and Kathy along with Sr. Christine Mulready and Jack Marth (all from New York) had approached the Trident submarine the USS Pennsylvania on June 26, 1988, with the intent of carrying out an act of disarmament.  The four were discovered by EB's security guards at the dock and later arrested by Groton City police.  On August 16 charges against them were dismissed.

'THE KAIROS PLOWSHARES TOO - Srs. Anne and Kathy crossed the "security" of the Quonset shipyard with the intent of disarming components of the Trident-II system. They found steel components, and named them with their own blood ("a symbol of our solidarity with those people Trident now victimizes") and hammers.  They were arrested, then later arraigned in Providence District Court on misdemeanor charges of trespass and malicious mischief, then released on personal recognizance.

"We attempt...to continue to free ourselves from the paralyzing power of fear: fear of failure, fear of courts and prison, or, above all, fear of our own power­lessness in the face of the violence Trident represents: ‘the all-consuming desire for profit' and 'the thirst for power with the intention of imposing one's will upon others.. at any price.' (John Paul II)."