This exchange between Ray Towey and (Prof) Tina Beattie began on 07 December 2023, in The TABLET, a Catholic publication in London.
Topic of the week – the scourge the Church ignores
Professor Vimal Tirimanna (Letters, 2 December) makes the debatable claim that some topics omitted from the Synod report (LGBTQ, women’s ordination, priestly celibacy) are “hot-button issues” from the “developed world”. This cannot go unchallenged. In Uganda, gays and lesbians face the death penalty. Priestly celibacy is so alien to most African cultures that it has to be asked how often it is observed. Stories abound of priests with children, and of African and Asian priests sexually abusing religious sisters.
There is strong support for women’s ordination across many countries in Latin America and elsewhere. But the elephant in the room remains the total silence on women’s reproductive health. Nearly 300,000 of the world’s poorest women and girls die every year in causes relating to pregnancy and childbirth, and thousands more suffer debilitating fistulas and other injuries. The vast majority of these are in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. This is indeed a hot-button issue. Why, when the Synod involved so many women participants and so many bishops from the Global South, does this scourge on the lives of poor women remain unacknowledged and unaddressed? One can search church teaching documents in vain for any mention of the suffering caused to individuals, families and communities by maternal mortality, which is one of the most avoidable causes of death. It is vanishingly rare in countries with good obstetric care, though rates are rising in the UK and are shamefully high in the US.
As long as the Church’s teaching ignores this reality with its glossy romanticism about maternal life and its eloquent but selective rhetoric about poverty, it cannot claim to be a poor Church of the poor. Why don’t the African and Asian bishops speak up? Did any of the women at the Synod raise these issues? And given the much-vaunted inclusivity of the synodal process, is it not right that we, the laity, should be able to ask such questions of those who were there, and expect honest answers?
(Prof) Tina Beattie Rye,
East Sussex.
Catholic Heroism
I read with dismay Prof Tina Beattie’s letter (9 December) accusing the Catholic Church of ignoring the plight of health care for the poorest women in Africa.
Over the last 40 years I have travelled extensively as an academic and as a lay missionary and worked with the Catholic Church in some of the remotest parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and I can assure her and your readers that you will find entire religious orders of nuns and priests and brothers who have given their entire lives to the care of the poorest women in the world.
It has been my privilege to work alongside these heroic individuals who at significant personal cost show a living witness to the Church’s special option for the poor. You will see the Catholic Church at its most inspiring. The faithful in Africa remain a significant pro-life community in every meaning of the word because of the service of these generations of missionaries.
(Dr) Raymond Towey London SE5.
Church in Africa
Dr Raymond Towey (Letters, 16 December) read my letter (9 December) as an accusation that the Catholic Church ignores maternal mortality and other obstetric risks among the poorest women in Africa, so I’d like to clarify. My letter referred to the silence of the Church’s leaders and official teaching documents on these issues, including the Synod report. It did not refer to the Church at the grassroots.
I’ve lived in sub-Saharan Africa for much of my life. I know that Catholic religious orders work tirelessly to provide education and healthcare for poor women and girls, including care during pregnancy and childbirth, and for thousands of young women suffering from life-threatening infections and injuries after abortions. Dr Towey’s claim that “the faithful in Africa remain a significant pro-life community” risks glossing a more complex and often tragic reality, but I suspect we are on the same side.
The three offered clear and moving accounts of their peace actions at the Ministry of Defence during Holy Week 2012 when they marked the building with blessed charcoal using words such as ‘Trident Crucifies the Poor’ and ‘Disarm Trident’. Reports from arresting officers were read out in court which affirmed that there actions had been totally nonviolent and that they had not resisted arrest in any way. While not disputing the fact of their action, they all argued that they had lawful excuse and moral convictions for what they did.
Twenty-five supporters joined Dr Ray Towey, 68, Henrietta Cullinan, 50, and Katrina Alton , 44, for a time of prayer outside Hammersmith Magistrates’ Court today before a three-hour hearing which found them guilty of causing criminal damage.
Ray, Henrietta and Katrina explained the relevance of the time and symbols used: Lent, a time for reflection and repentance at both personal and community levels and charcoal, a known symbol of that repentance that is used within the Christian faith community. The protection of life and people was at the heart of their actions and they all stated that these were more important than property or buildings. Their intention in marking the Ministry of Defence building was to engage the Ministry and those who work there in critical reflection on the UK’s nuclear defence policy and the Trident programme in particular in order to change it and prevent nuclear weapons from ever being used.
Judge Susan Williams acknowledged her understanding of this in her questioning of Ray Towey, and again in her summing up saying that these were profound means used to highlight the folly of humankind.
The three, who defended themselves, were given substantial time to present their own evidence and outline why they did what they did. The Judge said that she needed a good amount of time to reflect on what she had heard and the legal implications and adjourned the hearing for almost two hours.
Before adjournment, Ray Towey made a short intervention inviting the Judge to discharge them and to stand outside the normal boundaries of the legal institution and set a precedent. On her return she gave a fulsome summary – showing that she had listened with great care to all that she had heard – but ultimately finding them guilty of criminal damage. They were each charged with paying £200 court costs. While the Ministry of Defence had put forward a claim for £400 cleaning costs the Judge refused to enforce this.
The three were given an absolute discharge. All of them made it clear that they could not in conscience pay the court costs.
Their action was supported by the London Catholic Worker, Catholic Peace Action and Pax Christi.
For Ray Towey the outcome of this trial would be finalised on 24 June 2014 when he was called to attend Camberwell Magistrates Court to explain why he had not paid the court £200 costs. He had during this time several letters from bailiffs requesting the money and he had replied that as a Christian to him nuclear weapons were immoral and that he could not in conscience pay the court as he considered his actions in 2012 justified and therefore he was not guilty. Usually this defence is not accepted and a prison sentence of about 7 days would be expected. The judge listened to his explanation and replied that she would not accept this refusal but would give him more time to pay. He asked her not to delay her judgement as he was not going to pay and he wished to resolve the issue that day. She told him to go away and consider payment. He therefore left the court disappointed that the issue still remained unresolved. As he was descending the stairs leading to the exit the Clerk of the Court called out to him to return to the court as there was now a possibility of another outcome which might be beneficial to him. On return to the court the Judge sentence him to one day in jail. A one day sentence means that he was confined to the court till the end of business that day. It is in effect a symbolic sentence which meant he had no longer any need of paying the costs and would be free that day to go home. Ray Towey thanked her when the court rose and went home as a free person.
Continuing our series on Peace, Carmel Martin, anti-nuclear activist, defends our right to live
ON JULY 23, 1986, my third child, a daughter, was born. I rejoiced at the wonder of creation and this new life entrusted to my care.
When I was only 15 weeks pregnant, a time in which a woman could legally have an abortion, I visited the hospital for an ultra sound scan. Through this new technology I clearly saw, much to my astonishment, the child within me sucking her thumb and kicking her legs vigorously, and I couldn’t feel a thing! She was so tiny and yet so alive and human.
To think of abortion fills me with great sorrow, but I am much sadder to hear that even christians are among its supporters, or are at least confused about where they stand. They use the many pro-abortion arguments which place the humanity and life of the unborn child lower down the scale of values. The key assumption in favour of abortion is that the fetus is not human enough to be accorded the human rights that people outside the womb are supposed to have. The basic right to life is denied to what is a unique human being in the prenatal stage of their existence. This is a scientific/medical fact which is often over shadowed by other considerations.
Many men and women do not want to bring the child within the womb to full development for social, cultural, economic or political reasons. Tied up with all these reasons is the “women’s right to choose” argument, which states that the final decision is to be taken by the woman who is pregnant and who alone bears the burden of the pregnancy, birth, and often child rearing. I understand and sympathise with the physical and emotional traumas some women experience; especially if the child-to-be is unplanned and unwanted, or handicapped, or the result of rape; or if the woman/family lives in dire poverty.
I can only make a plea to the mother for the right to life of the child who is innocent and voiceless.
To others and society I say that if we really love and care for the unborn, we need to love and care for mothers. In a more just society of better health care, less poverty and more community support, women will choose abortion less often. Men need to take more responsibility for reproduction, for fighting everything that oppresses women from pornography to rape, and for child-care. Finally, we need to make adoption more acceptable as a nonviolent solution to an ‘unwanted’ child.
The same confusion of values and sometimes callousness regarding unborn children, is reflected in the justification for the possible use of nuclear weapons, which would result in the slaughter of millions of innocent people. In the deadly game of military and economic domination people are expendable. Their life is not as important as our values, our politics, our lifestyle. Mother Theresa drew the connection quite clearly when she said that once society accepts the killing of the unborn, all that is left for us to do is to kill each other.
This we are planning with great speed and ingenuity. There are enough weapons to kill everyone many times over, and more are planned (eg HM Government’s plan to buy Trident submarines). And even if only a small percentage of the world’s 50,000 nuclear weapons were used, climatic changes would result in the destruction or at least a fundamental change to life as we know it. The use of nuclear weapons would not only be murderous but suicidal and yet, as if the rulers of this world have gone mad or believe themselves to be gods, that is exactly what is planned and contemplated.
What else connects these two issues?
Nuclear radiation is most especially lethal to unborn children. The nuclear industry (weapons and power) is causing abortion and birth defects now through radio-active contamination of the environment. Women who survived the nuclear explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later gave birth to deformed children. Women in the South Pacific and Australia who were exposed to nuclear testing by the US, French, and British governments also gave birth to deformed children. This genetic damage will be passed on from one generation to the next.
The language of abortion and war dehumanises the victims. In wartime entire nations are called “Reds”, “Communists”, “Fascists”, “members of an evil empire”. The millions of innocent civilians who would be killed in a nuclear exchange are called “collateral damage”. In abortion, pregnancies are “terminated” and the suction bottle contains “products of conception”.
Neither the woman who chooses abortion nor the soldier who is trained to obey orders are exposed to the consequences of their actions. Before an abortion, the woman is not told the full medical and biological facts (not to mention the moral or religious ones), nor afterwards is she shown the tiny arms and legs that are burned or vacuumed from her womb. Soldiers trained to push buttons for nuclear missiles are not told that alongside the 60 military targets in Moscow live 8 million people, most of whom have nothing whatsoever to do with the military.
Mother Theresa is right. The acceptance of the silent holocaust of abortion will pave the way for the nuclear holocaust. But the rev.trse is also true. Our conditional, yet sincere intention to use nuclear weapons, which will result in the murder of millions of people, poisons our very hearts and souls and blinds us to the burning and dismemberment of millions of unborn children.
To conclude with an explicitly religious analogy. In the same way that abortion terminates the life and development of the unborn child a nuclear war will arrest, if not completely destroy, God’s plan to build the Kingdom “on earth as it is in Heaven”. Human sin will have intervened and successfully rebelled against God. But unlike the crucifixion of 2,000 years ago, this global crucifixion of Jesus will not be followed by a resurrection.
With both issues prevention is the only cure. The anti-abortion and anti-nuclear movements can and should work more closely together. The logic of death by abortion and nuclear war is the same, and can be successfully countered by a united front for life and peace; and where necessary, one movement should challenge the inconsistency of the other. The anti-abortionist should not forget the threat to all life, for all time, because of nuclear weapons; nor should “peace” workers forget the war being waged daily against unborn children in hospitals throughout the land.
The symphony of life and peace can drown out the dirge of death, but only if we all play our part to defend life and make peace.
The author is a Catholic mother of three children, ages 5, 3.5, and one month [Update: a 4th child was born in 1989]. In the last three years she has been arrested five times outside the Ministry of “Defence” in Whitehall while engaging in prayerful nonviolent resistance to the nuclear war preparations in this country.
Carmel is arrested for the first time, outside the Ministry of Defence, in 1983. She and others in CPA had chained themselves to an eight-foot wooden cross. Photos: Carlos Reyes
Carmel Martin (above just right of centre) belongs to a group of Christians who campaign for nuclear disarmament through “civil disobedience”. That means they’re liable to land in prison. Margaret Hebblethwaite spoke to Catholic Peace Action
Carmel Martin strides up the steps of the Ministry of Defence carrying a large, round loaf of home-baked bread marked with a cross. At her side are two fellow protesters from Catholic Peace Action, one with a basket of flowers, the other with a letter for Michael Heseltine.
“I am very afraid,” said Carmel, as she walked down Whitehall on the way to the Ministry, “I’m hoping not to be arrested, but if they don’t receive the gifts then we will refuse to move.” Carmel, a mother of two small boys, has been arrested three times and has served one prison sentence.
Inside the Ministry of Defence are glass security partitions and double doors with red and green lights above. The three women speak to a receptionist who immediately recognises the name Catholic Peace Action. “l take your leaflets to a little prayer group I go to and I agree with you,” she says, and then claps her hand to her mouth as though she should not have said it. She rings for Mr Heseltine’s representative and says, “‘He’ll be down in a minute dear.’
A tall man with a grey beard comes down to reception. By now sounds of hymn-singing are floating through the doors. As the rest of Catholic Peace Action hold a demonstration on the steps of the building the women explain that they have been fasting for three days and that they bring these gifts as signs of light/life and hope to all the staff and to express their concern at the work that goes on in the building.
Mr Heseltine’s representative nods understandingly and says. “Well, thank you very much.” and “l fear I have to rush straight up again.” Important work calls him — the work the women are protesting against. It is a courteous exchange. But meanwhile security guards – some in uniform, some in plain clothes and with walkie-talkies – have rushed to the entrance of the building and are preventing anyone entering or exiting. They stand at the top of the steps, trying not to over-react.
All goes well and today the demonstration is successfully completed without arrests.
Carmel has an open face and long, straight brown hair falling down her back to below her waist. She wears a simple, gold cross on a chain.
Daniel (four) and Sean (two) need encouragement to eat their Ready Brek. It is an openly Christian home. Daniel wants his daddy’s beard “to grow like Noah’s”, and Leonardo da Vinci’s head of Christ from the Last Supper gazes down from a calendar on the wall. “We have plenty, ” says Carmel, “but we don’t have extra money. “At the moment we have £3 in the bank”. Carmel trained as a teacher of Art and taught in Grimsby and London before going over to California where she met Dan. They both began to “work for peace” out in America, but have been back in England now for four years. “There is a greater need at the moment for the work of civil disobedience in England. It’s just beginning to take off, but two years ago it was just being talked about.”
To explain the need for civil disobedience she tells the story of Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurloe. “She was 13 when the bomb fell on the school she was in. She just remembers the darkness, and the children crying. She happened to be on the edge of the building and somebody pulled her out just before the school ignited and the rest of the children were burnt to death. She lost all her family. Her sister and her niece were vaporised in the centre of Hiroshima, and she said that for years she felt a tremendous pain — not because she had been a victim of the bomb, but because of the silence of the Church.
“She says that the only thing which eases that pain is that she knows people in America are actively involved in civil disobedience and are suffering for speaking out against it — two are serving 18-year sentences for damaging a missile. That validates what I am doing for me.”
Carmel and Dan helped to found Catholic Peace Action, which they call an “affinity group”. “We arranged a four- day retreat which we held here in the house, and we began with a commitment to non-violence, to prayer and to Civil disobedience.”
So far, Catholic Peace Action has held six actions at the Ministry Of Defence, which they also leaflet every second Friday, handing out 500 leaflets in an hour. “We get quite friendly with them. They give us lovely smiles and say. “Oh, it’s Friday again, nice to see you. We’ve met with several of the people who work there and we’ve had letters — people disagreeing with us — and it’s the opening of a dialogue.”
Every fortnight the group meets for a meal, for prayer and reflection together, and to plan future action. One member is an anaesthetist at a London teaching hospital. Another works for a famine relief agency. Another works full-time for the homeless. The group itself, in addition to protesting against the bomb, also takes it in turns to help out twice a month at the Manna Centre, Melior Street, where homeless men can come in during the day to have soup and bread and shelter.
When I met Carmel and Dan they had a homeless lad from Rotherham staying with them while he looked for a job. He had stopped them as they came out of a Vivaldi concert, to ask them for money, but instead they took him home. The group sees the issue of bombs and world hunger as crucially interlinked. “We want the money redirected to those who are starving. I think the greatest suffering that anyone can have is not suffering themselves but watching a child suffer and I feel complete empathy and agony for the mothers who have to watch their children starve to death. Twenty-one children die from hunger every minute, and meanwhile 51% of all scientists are working on defence-related projects. There comes a time when we have to speak out and say that things have to change. The bombs are falling now and they’re falling on those who are starving.”
Carmel thinks the most likely outcome of the arms race is a catastrophic nuclear accident. “In 1979 the Americans came to the point where they were six minutes away from firing nuclear weapons because their computer registered a nuclear attack. Miraculously it was discovered it was a flock of geese. Six minutes,’ What are we risking? We’re risking the whole of creation being destroyed as the result of an accident. That seems to me to be the ultimate blasphemy, when you can choose to destroy God’s creation.
“One of our group [Sarah Hipperson] lives at Greenham Common, and when the nuclear weapons convoy comes out, the people involved with putting it on the road don’t know at the time whether it is an exercise or whether it is the real thing. Children of air base personnel are taken from their beds at four o’clock in the morning and put into shelters. They don’t know either if that is an exercise or if it is the real thing. As a Catholic I couldn’t be part of that. It’s easy to depersonalise when you’re working with papers and files, it’s easy to fool yourself and say this isn’t really what I’m doing. That is the position a lot of people are in, either they can’t face it or they choose not to.”
And so one of the aims of Catholic Peace is “to try to bring about some conversion of heart, and as a group we have seen that take place. During our first act of civil disobedience in April 1983, I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in a profound way. Other people did too — it wasn’t just me.
“We poured ashes and our own blood on the steps of the Ministry of Defence, and then knelt in prayer. We used the symbol of blood because it represents the choice between life and death, and for those in the third world it’s a reality — they are losing their life’s blood slowly through starvation or through persecution. We wanted to use a symbol as powerful as the evil we are trying to resist.
“After that act of civil disobedience the gospels took on a new meaning for me. The feeling and the enlightenment — Pentecost must have been like that, when the Holy Spirit came down on the disciples with tongues of fire. It was as though I saw things with new eyes.
“It left me with great hope, and that hope is very marked for me, because previously I had been despairing of the situation, sort of in the darkness. I had been completely powerless, but then I was empowered again and given a renewed sense of hope.”
Sarah Hipperson and Carmel Martin, during the same witness in October 1983.Part of the liturgy in the porch area of the Ministry of Defence, during a previous witness.
Carmel’s first arrest was on October 11, 1983 after she, and others, had chained themselves to an eight-foot cross on the steps of the Ministry of Defence. She was asked to sign an undertaking to keep the peace. “It was three days before Christmas, and although previously I had decided I was not going to sign, because I felt that the peace I would be keeping was different from the peace the court was asking me to keep, when it actually came to doing that and spending Christmas in prison away from my family, I could not refuse to sign.
The second arrest was on Ash Wednesday. 1984 when the protesters marked their foreheads with ashes and Carmel wrote “Repent” on the pillars of the Ministry of Defence with charcoal. “We took the message of “Repent” from the Ash Wednesday liturgy. We are not only repenting of our own silence and sinfulness in contributing to the build-up, we are asking the people in the Ministry of Defence to do the same thing, and through them, the Government and the nation.”
Carmel was given a fine of £50 or seven days in prison. “Think about the children,” said the magistrate trying unsuccessfully to persuade her to pay the fine. Carmel says. “l thought that was so ironic. I am doing this partly because of the children.
When she turned herself in before serving her sentence she found she was able to explain the whole thing to the policemen. At the end of the conversation one of them said, “I’m a Catholic. I know you’re right, we all know you’re right.” It seemed that because I was prepared to pay some sort of price for what I believed in, the ears of the policemen were opened.”
Carmel was admitted to Holloway, together with some of her friends. The admission procedures took eight hours and included a medical examination, which Carmel refused, and a strip search. All the women admitted on a particular day are put together, not separated according to crime. We were mixed with drug addicts, burglars, and the first thing people ask you is, “Why are you here?” Someone who I found out later was a prostitute said to her friend “She could be a spy.’ I said. “No, I’m a peace protester.” She said you look so innocent.”
Three of the protesters ended up together in the same cell. “We were treated with respect by the other prisoners because we were able to discuss it with them and by the warders for the most part. The worst thing was that time dragged terribly. You were always waiting for the meal, the mail.”
Carmel’s third arrest took place this year on a day of bitter cold and Snow — January 15, the birth date of the black civil rights leader Martin Luther King. She was to be tried on the day after I spoke to her. Catholic Peace Action had carried a large candle to the Ministry of Defence, as a symbol of Martin Luther King’s fight against poverty, war and injustice, and as a symbol of the light of Christ in the world. They put a poster on the centre door of the Ministry of Defence which read ‘Unarmed truth is the greatest force in the universe’, and they chained themselves to the door while they held the usual prayer service.
Carmel said about the prospect of the trial: “I’m nervous. I feel it is such a responsibility to speak the truth clearly and I sometimes think I am not really the best person to do that because I am so illogical. You’ll know if I’m nervous because my voice goes very high.
“Before the last trial, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you about it because I was so upset, because of the emotional strain of leaving the children. For me, being with the children is a priority — I choose not to work because I want to share the time with my children while they are little, so it was really wrenching. In court, I was extremely nervous but I was able to speak. I think the Holy Spirit gave me strength.”
Carmel suspected that she was likely to be given a fine of around £85 with the penalty of about 14 days imprisonment for not paying. “At the moment the children don’t know that I may be in prison but I will tell them that I may be gone for a while but I may not. I am very fortunate that Dan fully supports me and we have interchangeable roles. He’s very good with the children and does everything.
“We have the Catholic Peace Action meetings at the house here, so Daniel, one of our sons knows all the people very well. He knows that periodically Sarah is in prison, or Ray is in prison, Or Pat is in prison and I go to visit them. Last time the only reference he made was when I came out, and he said, ‘Why did you have to go to prison?’ and I said. ‘l had to go because I have to work for peace. so vou can grow up and be happy.’ And he said. • I don’t want you to work for peace any more if you have to go to prison. “
l wish there was another way. It would be great if someone would say to me, ‘you don’t need to do this.’ I would listen, because I don’t do this because I enjoy doing it. I do it because I think I have no choice.”
The next morning at Bow Street a little crowd of about 20 supporters turned up to attend the trial. Outside the door of the courtroom they held a little prayer service while half a dozen policemen laughed and joked on the other side of some glass swing doors. The prosecuting counsel walked through the praying group respectfully.
The five prisoners defended themselves. “Could you read the marked passage from the sheet we handed out at our demonstration?” asked one of the protesters of several police witnesses in turn. “It is a quotation from Martin Luther King. “
The policeman, who had just mumbled through his oath to Almighty God took the paper, coughed and read. “We come today as always in a spirit of friendship and love.” “Would you say,” asked the defendant “that the action you witnessed was in accord with that spirit of friendship and love?”
The Inspector looked flustered. The Constable twitched his lip and said. “Well, sir, I’d say it was.”
The magistrate, who asked for a copy of the sheet afterwards to take home for his daughter who was doing a school project on Martin Luther King, looked over his half-lensed glasses and pronounced that he was quite satisfied that it had been a gentle, peaceful, well-mannered demonstration. Technically – “and I emphasise technically,” he said — he found them guilty of obstruction, but his sentence was an absolute discharge. And he added, “I am very grateful for the way in which the defendants conducted their case — with courtesy, discretion, intelligence, and. for the most part with relevance.”
“I’m feeling fantastic, lost for words” said Carmel, immediately afterwards.
Less than one month later. Carmel was on the steps of the Ministry of Defence again risking arrest in another act of civil disobedience. She will not be easy to silence.
Sir: Cecilia Hatt in Viewpoint asks a question and I hasten to answer. The point I made at the London meeting on 20 March and at other times as well was quite a simple one.
If Catholics and others concerned for peace do not agree with the policies of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, then why do they not instead become active members of one of the many organisations with more general aims?
From the Freeze Coalition to the Campaign against the Arms Trade, from Pax Christi to the United Nations Association, such movements exist in quite large numbers and they ought to have solid Catholic support. That they do not is simply a matter of observation.
I am still almost the only British priest with concern for the entirely non-controversial World Conference of Religions for Peace. It is good news that Cecilia Hatt and I can at least agree on the excellence of the American bishops’ pastoral letter, so well prepared and presented.
If we were to apply its conclusions to government policy here, we would very soon be in collision with government policy. It calls for a halt on further nuclear weapons deployment, an end to nuclear war-fighting doctrines, and opposes deterrent policies resting on a willingness to target cities.
Julian Critchley MP, by no means a enthusiast for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, has recently agreed that our present policies in this area can be summed up as “population extermination”
Of course, we can all do things sometimes, which others will judge to be silly, extreme or over-judgmental, though Catholic Peace Action must answer for itself.
I can only speak for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament which has clearly made mistakes in its time. But no one ought to expect perfection from an organisation before getting involved. Or even afterwards, as the failings of the Vatican Bank may serve to remind us….
(Mgr) Bruce Kent
General Secretary Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
11 Goodwin Street
London
N4 3HQ
28 April 1984
Sir:
Cecilia Hatt has given the wrong impression of Catholic Peace Action and also reveals a lack of understanding of Christian civil disobedience (Viewpoint, 7 April). Her charge against CPA of “self- righteousness” and “uncharitable language” is based on two quotes. The first quote does not support her in the least and the second is not only taken out of context but is a misquote.
To mention three examples: After our second act of civil disobedience on 11 October 1983, CPA supporters and many of the police exchanged handshakes of peace. Our twice-monthly leafleting of the Ministry of Defence workers now elicits friendly greetings, smiles, written responses and often a civil dialogue or two. And when the magistrate sentenced two of us to prison over the Christmas period last year, we did not feel any ill-will toward him; indeed, he acted with more patience and understanding during this, our second trial, than he did during our first one.
Mrs Hatt goes on to take out of context and misquote a statement of ours which explained our Ash Wednesday act of civil disobedience. The full quote, in the proper context, is: “Today we pray for the conversion of this nation and for all those involved with nuclear war preparations. We pray in the place where planning for genocide continues day after day, the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. In sorrow and love, we bring a message of repentance to the Ministry of Defence workers and through them the government and nation: ‘Repent; in the name of God and life stop preparing for death and destruction.’ “
As the actual sentence reads, we did not single out the Ministry of Defence workers as the only ones in need of repentance. During the action, the four members of Catholic Peace Action who wrote on the pillars the word “Repent” also daubed their own foreheads, along with the 40 people praying with us. Our statement further read: “We sin by omission if we fail to do what we can to stop this nuclear madness.” Sins of omission and commission cover, I presume, everyone, including ourselves.
Mrs Hatt seems to think that the word “genocide” cannot correctly be applied to nuclear weapons or nuclear war preparations. She and others can believe what they like, but perhaps an even more appropriate word is “omnicide”. What other consequences would follow the use of nuclear weapons? How else could their use be described?
Let us not delude ourselves. Nuclear weapons are here to be used. During the last elections, Mrs Thatcher was quite clear that she would, under certain circum- stances, “Of course” push the button. So thousands of military personnel and many civil servants are involved in maintaining a certain level of readiness so that the button can be pushed (even if they personally do not have the intention to use nuclear weapons themselves). And these people, of course, are not acting alone — they do their job as servants of the people; the Government sincerely threatens to use nuclear weapons in our name.
Even if every person in this country agreed with such a position it would not, in our opinion, make it right. One of our responses to this situation is non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. We would sin by omission if we did not say “no” as clearly and as powerfully as we could. And we believe that there is nothing more powerful than actions based on love and non-violence. On a point of agreement with Mrs Hatt, I also “take heart” from the American bishops’ pastoral letter The Challenge of Peace. In the section “The Value of Non-violence”, they mention Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King, as having a “profound impact on the life of the Church in the United States”. It may not be well known, but Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, engaged in civil disobedience over many issues. It was during the fifties that she went to jail for resistance to nuclear “defence” preparations.
My heart was most taken, however, when one of the principal authors of the pastoral letter, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, met two members of Catholic Peace Action and thanked them for what we were doing and wished that he could do it also. He was very supportive. We are encouraged also by the statements and actions of Bishop Matthiesen of Amarillo and Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle. These bishops are active in a campaign to stop the shipment by rail of Trident warheads from Amarillo, where they are assembled, to Seattle, home of the Trident submarine.
In a recent joint statement they encouraged people to “monitor and offer non-violent resistance to each successive violation of our pastoral letter. Our stand in the pastoral letter is that no further deployment of nuclear weapons can possibly be justified. Every missile and nuclear weapons shipment is both a significant step toward a first-strike holocaust and a violation of the moral stand we have taken. What we can all do along the tracks when these shipments come through is stand in prayerful witness to the alternative power of divine love and non-violent action. “
Non-violent civil disobedience may be “unintelligent” to Mrs Hatt, but it has a long Christian tradition and a growing number of Christian practitioners, both in this country and in the United States.
Cecilia Hatt has given the wrong impression of Catholic Peace Action and also reveals a lack of understanding of Christian civil disobedience (Viewpoint, 7 April). Her charge against CPA of “self- righteousness” and “uncharitable language” is based on two quotes. The first quote does not support her in the least and the second is not only taken out of context but is a misquote.
To mention three examples: After our second act of civil disobedience on 11 October 1983, CPA supporters and many of the police exchanged handshakes of peace. Our twice-monthly leafleting of the Ministry of Defence workers now elicits friendly greetings, smiles, written responses and often a civil dialogue or two. And when the magistrate sentenced two of us to prison over the Christmas period last year, we did not feel any ill-will toward him; indeed, he acted with more patience and understanding during this, our second trial, than he did during our first one.
Mrs Hatt goes on to take out of context and misquote a statement of ours which explained our Ash Wednesday act of civil disobedience. The full quote, in the proper context, is: “Today we pray for the conversion of this nation and for all those involved with nuclear war preparations. We pray in the place where planning for genocide continues day after day, the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. In sorrow and love, we bring a message of repentance to the Ministry of Defence workers and through them the government and nation: ‘Repent; in the name of God and life stop preparing for death and destruction.’ “
As the actual sentence reads, we did not single out the Ministry of Defence workers as the only ones in need of repentance. During the action, the four members of Catholic Peace Action who wrote on the pillars the word “Repent” also daubed their own foreheads, along with the 40 people praying with us. Our statement further read: “We sin by omission if we fail to do what we can to stop this nuclear madness.” Sins of omission and commission cover, I presume, everyone, including ourselves.
Mrs Hatt seems to think that the word “genocide” cannot correctly be applied to nuclear weapons or nuclear war preparations. She and others can believe what they like, but perhaps an even more appropriate word is “omnicide”. What other consequences would follow the use of nuclear weapons? How else could their use be described?
Let us not delude ourselves. Nuclear weapons are here to be used. During the last elections, Mrs Thatcher was quite clear that she would, under certain circum- stances, “Of course” push the button. So thousands of military personnel and many civil servants are involved in maintaining a certain level of readiness so that the button can be pushed (even if they personally do not have the intention to use nuclear weapons themselves). And these people, of course, are not acting alone — they do their job as servants of the people; the Government sincerely threatens to use nuclear weapons in our name.
Even if every person in this country agreed with such a position it would not, in our opinion, make it right. One of our responses to this situation is non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. We would sin by omission if we did not say “no” as clearly and as powerfully as we could. And we believe that there is nothing more powerful than actions based on love and non-violence. On a point of agreement with Mrs Hatt, I also “take heart” from the American bishops’ pastoral letter The Challenge of Peace. In the section “The Value of Non-violence”, they mention Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King, as having a “profound impact on the life of the Church in the United States”. It may not be well known, but Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, engaged in civil disobedience over many issues. It was during the fifties that she went to jail for resistance to nuclear “defence” preparations.
My heart was most taken, however, when one of the principal authors of the pastoral letter, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, met two members of Catholic Peace Action and thanked them for what we were doing and wished that he could do it also. He was very supportive. We are encouraged also by the statements and actions of Bishop Matthiesen of Amarillo and Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle. These bishops are active in a campaign to stop the shipment by rail of Trident warheads from Amarillo, where they are assembled, to Seattle, home of the Trident submarine.
In a recent joint statement they encouraged people to “monitor and offer non-violent resistance to each successive violation of our pastoral letter. Our stand in the pastoral letter is that no further deployment of nuclear weapons can possibly be justified. Every missile and nuclear weapons shipment is both a significant step toward a first-strike holocaust and a violation of the moral stand we have taken. What we can all do along the tracks when these shipments come through is stand in prayerful witness to the alternative power of divine love and non-violent action. “
Non-violent civil disobedience may be “unintelligent” to Mrs Hatt, but it has a long Christian tradition and a growing number of Christian practitioners, both in this country and in the United States.
Sir: Cecilia Hatt in Viewpoint asks a question and I hasten to answer. The point I made at the London meeting on 20 March and at other times as well was quite a simple one.
If Catholics and others concerned for peace do not agree with the policies of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, then why do they not instead become active members of one of the many organisations with more general aims?
From the Freeze Coalition to the Campaign against the Arms Trade, from Pax Christi to the United Nations Association, such movements exist in quite large numbers and they ought to have solid Catholic support. That they do not is simply a matter of observation.
I am still almost the only British priest with concern for the entirely non-controversial World Conference of Religions for Peace. It is good news that Cecilia Hatt and I can at least agree on the excellence of the American bishops’ pastoral letter, so well prepared and presented.
If we were to apply its conclusions to government policy here, we would very soon be in collision with government policy. It calls for a halt on further nuclear weapons deployment, an end to nuclear war-fighting doctrines, and opposes deterrent policies resting on a willingness to target cities.
Julian Critchley MP, by no means a enthusiast for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, has recently agreed that our present policies in this area can be summed up as “population extermination”
Of course, we can all do things sometimes, which others will judge to be silly, extreme or over-judgmental, though Catholic Peace Action must answer for itself.
I can only speak for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament which has clearly made mistakes in its time. But no one ought to expect perfection from an organisation before getting involved. Or even afterwards, as the failings of the Vatican Bank may serve to remind us….
(Mgr) Bruce Kent
General Secretary Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Sir: Cecilia Hatt in Viewpoint asks a question and I hasten to answer. The point I made at the London meeting on 20 March and at other times as well was quite a simple one.
If Catholics and others concerned for peace do not agree with the policies of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, then why do they not instead become active members of one of the many organisations with more general aims?
From the Freeze Coalition to the Campaign against the Arms Trade, from Pax Christi to the United Nations Association, such movements exist in quite large numbers and they ought to have solid Catholic support. That they do not is simply a matter of observation.
I am still almost the only British priest with concern for the entirely non-controversial World Conference of Religions for Peace. It is good news that Cecilia Hatt and I can at least agree on the excellence of the American bishops’ pastoral letter, so well prepared and presented.
If we were to apply its conclusions to government policy here, we would very soon be in collision with government policy. It calls for a halt on further nuclear weapons deployment, an end to nuclear war-fighting doctrines, and opposes deterrent policies resting on a willingness to target cities.
Julian Critchley MP, by no means a enthusiast for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, has recently agreed that our present policies in this area can be summed up as “population extermination”
Of course, we can all do things sometimes, which others will judge to be silly, extreme or over-judgmental, though Catholic Peace Action must answer for itself.
I can only speak for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament which has clearly made mistakes in its time. But no one ought to expect perfection from an organisation before getting involved. Or even afterwards, as the failings of the Vatican Bank may serve to remind us….
(Mgr) Bruce Kent
General Secretary Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
11 Goodwin Street
London
N4 3HQ
28 April 1984
Sir:
Cecilia Hatt has given the wrong impression of Catholic Peace Action and also reveals a lack of understanding of Christian civil disobedience (Viewpoint, 7 April). Her charge against CPA of “self- righteousness” and “uncharitable language” is based on two quotes. The first quote does not support her in the least and the second is not only taken out of context but is a misquote.
To mention three examples: After our second act of civil disobedience on 11 October 1983, CPA supporters and many of the police exchanged handshakes of peace. Our twice-monthly leafleting of the Ministry of Defence workers now elicits friendly greetings, smiles, written responses and often a civil dialogue or two. And when the magistrate sentenced two of us to prison over the Christmas period last year, we did not feel any ill-will toward him; indeed, he acted with more patience and understanding during this, our second trial, than he did during our first one.
Mrs Hatt goes on to take out of context and misquote a statement of ours which explained our Ash Wednesday act of civil disobedience. The full quote, in the proper context, is: “Today we pray for the conversion of this nation and for all those involved with nuclear war preparations. We pray in the place where planning for genocide continues day after day, the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. In sorrow and love, we bring a message of repentance to the Ministry of Defence workers and through them the government and nation: ‘Repent; in the name of God and life stop preparing for death and destruction.’ “
As the actual sentence reads, we did not single out the Ministry of Defence workers as the only ones in need of repentance. During the action, the four members of Catholic Peace Action who wrote on the pillars the word “Repent” also daubed their own foreheads, along with the 40 people praying with us. Our statement further read: “We sin by omission if we fail to do what we can to stop this nuclear madness.” Sins of omission and commission cover, I presume, everyone, including ourselves.
Mrs Hatt seems to think that the word “genocide” cannot correctly be applied to nuclear weapons or nuclear war preparations. She and others can believe what they like, but perhaps an even more appropriate word is “omnicide”. What other consequences would follow the use of nuclear weapons? How else could their use be described?
Let us not delude ourselves. Nuclear weapons are here to be used. During the last elections, Mrs Thatcher was quite clear that she would, under certain circum- stances, “Of course” push the button. So thousands of military personnel and many civil servants are involved in maintaining a certain level of readiness so that the button can be pushed (even if they personally do not have the intention to use nuclear weapons themselves). And these people, of course, are not acting alone — they do their job as servants of the people; the Government sincerely threatens to use nuclear weapons in our name.
Even if every person in this country agreed with such a position it would not, in our opinion, make it right. One of our responses to this situation is non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. We would sin by omission if we did not say “no” as clearly and as powerfully as we could. And we believe that there is nothing more powerful than actions based on love and non-violence. On a point of agreement with Mrs Hatt, I also “take heart” from the American bishops’ pastoral letter The Challenge of Peace. In the section “The Value of Non-violence”, they mention Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King, as having a “profound impact on the life of the Church in the United States”. It may not be well known, but Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, engaged in civil disobedience over many issues. It was during the fifties that she went to jail for resistance to nuclear “defence” preparations.
My heart was most taken, however, when one of the principal authors of the pastoral letter, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, met two members of Catholic Peace Action and thanked them for what we were doing and wished that he could do it also. He was very supportive. We are encouraged also by the statements and actions of Bishop Matthiesen of Amarillo and Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle. These bishops are active in a campaign to stop the shipment by rail of Trident warheads from Amarillo, where they are assembled, to Seattle, home of the Trident submarine.
In a recent joint statement they encouraged people to “monitor and offer non-violent resistance to each successive violation of our pastoral letter. Our stand in the pastoral letter is that no further deployment of nuclear weapons can possibly be justified. Every missile and nuclear weapons shipment is both a significant step toward a first-strike holocaust and a violation of the moral stand we have taken. What we can all do along the tracks when these shipments come through is stand in prayerful witness to the alternative power of divine love and non-violent action. “
Non-violent civil disobedience may be “unintelligent” to Mrs Hatt, but it has a long Christian tradition and a growing number of Christian practitioners, both in this country and in the United States.
Dan Martin
Catholic Peace Action
7 Putney Bridge Road
London
SW18 IHX
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