Tag Archives: Ray Towey

January 1995 Newsletter

 January 1995

Dear Friends,

We invite you to participate in our next Lenten witness at the MoD.

As in the first few years we will be starting the Liturgy outside. Church premises are not as available this year due to cost or timing.

But never mind, a witness will be made and Lent will be observed in a matter appropriate for a nuclear weapons state.

Join us in the Embankment Gardens (between Embankment Station and the MoD) at 12:30, on Ash Wednesday, 1 March. Sarah Hipperson will give a few good words by way of a homily.

So far only Dan and Pat will be marking the building. Pat once and Dan several times during Lent; we could use some company! How about giving it a go? Your friends and family will thank you for doing so, if not right away then eventually.  If you would like to discuss the possibility of marking the MoD come to the preparation meeting on…

The Bailiffs have not knocked on the door of the Martins, so they wait with some vigilance and try to get on with their lives.

Contact us for details of Bible study and reflection evenings.

Yours in peace

Dan and Carmel Martin, Pat Gaffney, Sarah Hipperson, and Ray Towey

A Time for ‘Foolishness’
A Return visit to NATO Headquarters, Northwood,
after 11 years

By Sarah Hipperson

On 5th January 1983 a large group of London-based Christians, gathered opposite the NATO Headquarters on the Watford Road, Northwood, to take part in a ‘Prayer and Liturgy service, and to hand out leaflets calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, especially the planned siting of Cruise missiles on Greenham Common. (The Missiles arrived on 14 November 1983 and after 7 1/2 years of resistance were removed under the I.N.F. Treaty.)

The gathering was called by Catholic Peace Action, a newly formed group of Catholics, who were greatly concerned that the hierarchy of the Church was not speaking out decisively against the policy of ‘Nuclear Deterrence’, which we believed to be incompatible with the will of God.  Almost 12 years on we continue to resist this policy.

We had been drawn to the existence of the NATO base during the Falklands War; it was from here, that the sinking of the Belgrano warship was ordered.

I recall how nervous I felt at the thought of such a public expression of our rejection of nuclear weapons, and during the ‘Intercessional Prayers’ I felt the need to ask for guidance and strength, so that I would not mind looking ‘foolish’ on this journey of resistance on which we had embarked.

I felt that within certain quarters of the Church and the Christian Peace Movement we would not be understood.  And believing that this was what it would take to really challenge the evil of nuclear weapons, I instinctively knew I would have to overcome my inclination to self-consciousness.  Over the years I have been grateful for the insight that was revealed to me on that important day.  On each occasion when called upon to take non-violent direct action, I try to remind myself of that prayer, and of how the answer to that prayer has sustained me.

On the 19th of November 1994 I returned to the NATO base, this time with six women from the Women’s Peace Camp on Greenham Common. We entered the base through the fence to protest against the introduction of the Criminal Justice Bill and, inspite of this added threat to our work, to continue our commitment to non-violent resistance to the Trident programme.

As soon as we were all safely through the fence we unfurled our banners and started singing to alert the military of our presence.  We were aware that those who guarded the base were armed with guns, so we wanted to create a calm, non-violent atmosphere, and we were successful.  After a short walk we met a naval officer who stopped to ask, “Is this a joke?”  We answered, ‘No’ and walked on.  We then saw a building marked with an imposing sign saying ‘Command Centre’ and quickly walked towards it; just managing to enter as the heavy metal gate closed across the entrance.  We found ourselves in the heart of the operations room where the plotting and planning takes place for the Trident Nuclear submarine system.  We announced calmly that we were from the “Women’s Peace Camp’, that we were non-violent and that they had nothing to fear from our presence.  One of our banners confirmed these messages.

There was only short, initial period of confusion caused by a young Marine Soldier screaming at us to get out and inciting his guard dog to attack us.  Having been in this situation on other occasions with the military, through our experience at Greenham, we brought calmness to the dog and told the soldier to behave. The sergeant in charge supported our efforts to calm things down, and we settled in to do our work of disrupting and undermining the preparations for mass murder carried out in this building. We remained there for more than 1 1/2 hours.  For all that time the military work stopped and the soldiers listened to our singing and the facts about the destructiveness of Trident.  I believe that the power element within this building was altered, even if only for the time we spent there.  The power of non-violence was palpable.  I believe that we left behind in that room the essence of that power.

When the police arrived, accompanied by some high ranking military personnel, we were in the middle of a picnic spread; after singing for more that an hour we were hungry and in need of a break.  The dog had very quickly become friendly and was looking longingly at us and our food.  I remember thinking that that poor creature would rather be going off with us than being left under the control of the soldier, who demands behaviour determined by the military mind, obsessed with security.

We were not charged, this no doubt, as a result of the decision not to expose the military personnel to the embarrassment of revealing in open court that their security had been breached by non-violent women.  We left as we had arrived, singing and displaying our banners but with an audience this time made up of very surprised members of Her Majesty’s Forces.

Remembrance Day 1994

By Pat Gaffney

Shortly before 1l.00 a.m. on Friday 11th November, a small group of us gathered at the MoD, with our placards, bearing such messages as No More War Graves, “Choose Life, No to Trident,” to keep watch, pray and leaflet in memory of all those who have died in wars. Our leaflet, a copy of which is enclosed with this newsletter, offered accounts of other, nonviolent ways of confronting and resisting evil as a positive way of remembering the dead and the living, a way which we believe to be consistent with the Gospels.

This time we were joined by Clare (8) and Matthew (5) Martin and for me, their presence brought with it a new urgency and clarity for being there on that day.  Clare and Matthew came to stand with me and helped to hold the placards I was carrying.  After a few minutes the questions started to come. “What is Trident”? “Well, it is a special kind of nuclear weapon”, “What is a nuclear weapon”?. “A very powerful weapon that can do a lot of damage to people”. “Why not just say nuclear weapon then”? “Well, because this one, Trident, is being built by our country and we are asking them to stop building it.”

These came from Clare before she offered to help give out leaflets to passers-by.  Then Matthew started: “What does it say on your poster Pat?”  “No more war graves.”  “What’s a grave?” “When people die and we bury them the hole we put them into is called a grave.”  “What is a war grave?”  “In some wars, when soldiers die, they are put graves too”.

“What is war”. “Sometimes people or countries disagree about something, or one person or country wants something that another has and they fight about it.  When a lot of people fight and are killed we call it war”. “Who gets killed?”  “Well sometimes soldiers but often it is ordinary people, poor people.”  “But I thought we were supposed to help the poor people.”

At this moment a number of workers came down the steps of the building and how I wished they could have been frozen in time for a few moments to listen in to this conversation.  How might they have responded to them?  The conversation ended at this point but I had already been challenged by the children.  Their questions called me to account for the world we live in.  This occasion has raised even more questions for me, some of which I offer here. Perhaps they will trigger some thoughts from you too which you may want to share with us.

1995 is a year of anniversaries. The liberation of the concentration camps, the ending of World War II, the first use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the opening of the Nuremberg

Tribunal and so on. These are events which are loaded in every sense of the word.  They mark colossal events in modern history and they have coloured and influenced much of what has

happened since 1945.  They are events which have prompted both the military/state and the peace movement to say ‘never again’, but to act on that commitment in very different ways.  How these events are presented to our children in the coming year is going to be important. Whose story will be told, whose interests presented and protected?

Like Clare and Matthew, there are thousands of children in this country who do not know what nuclear weapons are.  They do not know about war graves or about the Second World War, (and it is not just small children, many adolescents have no sense of what happened in 1945, talk about Hiroshima or Nagasaki or Death Camps and they look back at you blankly.)  Do we let things ride and wait for questions to be asked like those of Clare and Matthew?  Do we take an initiative and openly talk about the history of our time, its wars, death, suffering? Children cannot be ignorant of the reality of war today — so much comes to them through the television, but what sense do they have of past events that are to be remembered this year?  It is natural that we want to protect children from things which disturb and distress them – in a sense it is their innocence and happiness that gives us jaundiced adults a sense of hope for the future. But we are a people of faith, who constantly recall a life that was full of questions, contradictions, suffering and challenge – all of which are also calling us to account for the way we live, just as the chidren’s questions had done.  Do we welcome questions or do we want a quiet uncomplicated life?

Today’s newspaper carried a story about young children from German families being afraid to go to school because they were being called Nazis.  Recently I heard that some groups in America were trying to develop a commemorative stamp that showed the bombing of Hiroshima as a symbol of victory of Japan — thankfully the idea was rejected. Do we want our children to ‘learn’ enmity towards whole nations people not from any experience they may have had themselves but through what they have heard or been taught? Do we want our children to believe that the best way of challenging wrong-doing or evil in the world is by building and using bigger and more horrific weapons? The challenge is ours.  Do we have other stories to tell and actions to recall that are both faithful to all those whose lives have been lost in warfare and faithful to Jesus who invites us to live by the nonviolent message of the Gospel?

(Below is one of the leaflets handed out at the MoD)

Non-violence:

A Viable Alternative to War

Jesus calls us to non-violent, active opposition to evil. Living by faith means believing that there is no situation in which it is impossible to be faithful to the gospel and the gospel is non-violent.

Jesus said, Put your sword back, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword (Mt. 26:52) Non-

violence should not be confused with passivity–it requires a commitment to resist evil, an acceptance of the consequences and sacrifice.

Here is an incomplete list of non-violent achievements that brought forth change for the better to oppressed people:

Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign for independence of India;
Martin Luther King, jr. ‘s, Civil Rights struggle;
Caesar Chavez and the Farm Workers of the U.S.A.;
South African Anti-apartheid movements;
Brazilian campesinos,
Chilean urban slum dwellers;
Mothers of the Disappeared;
Solidarity in Poland,

The ousting of dictators like Marcos in the Philippines and Erich Honecker in East Germany;
The Collapse of the Soviet Empire;

Peace protesters in Britain to rid this country of cruise missiles, particularly Greenham Women and Catholic Peace Action members and others who made it known publicly their commitment to non-violent direct action and served time in prison as a consequence.

The Works of Mercy

To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty
To clothe the naked
To visit the imprisoned To shelter the homeless
To visit the sick
To bury the dead.
For the true children of God, mercy is a duty.

A clean heart create in me O God.

An African Woman Weeps

By Ray Towey

I knew her name was Theresa. She was an African woman waiting for an operation in an African hospital and as the patients were so many she would have to be postponed for another day  or week or perhaps month or months. Such postponements are commonplace and the patients usually quietly wrap their covering sheets around themselves pick up their medical records and make their way back to the wards.  Disappointed, as most patients are when this happens, they are usually hopeful because to have got at least this far means that ultimately they will get their operation.

But for Theresa this day was different.  She had lost hope and she began to cry in way that I had never seen an African woman cry before.  As I passed by her I could see the tears just roll down her cheeks as she sat quietly and waited resigned and dignified.  I had seen and heard many women cry in Africa.  When the children die the mothers weep and wail and throw themselves on the floor in a way that is very disturbing but Theresa`s tears were of a different kind and I was perplexed and curious.

From her medical history I could easily work out a large part of her story.  She was probably from a remote part of East Africa living in a village where adequate medical care has never existed for many diseases.  Married at a young age her pregnancy and labour would have been very poorly managed.  When she went into labour and could not deliver her child, many hours of obstructed labour followed before some form of delivery, most likely of a dead baby, was carried out. By that time the pressure of the baby’s head on the mother’s pelvis had damaged her bladder so badly that now she leaked urine continuously.  She now had a vesicoavaginal fistula that only delicate surgery by the African surgeons could cure.

In some ways she was a fortunate woman. She had not died in obstructed labour as so many thousands of women do in Africa.  Eventually she had managed to find the means to travel perhaps over one hundred miles to our hospital where she was now waiting for some chance of cure. Today for some reason Theresa had lost hope and the tears quietly rolled down her cheeks but I could not see why on this day she should be so disturbed. 

I called one of the nurses over to translate for me and to find some explanation for her weeping.  The nurse explained that Theresa knew that the next day there was to be a plan by the government to start charging fees for operations.  She was a poor woman without money.  She now felt that as her operation had been postponed this day then she had lost hope of a cure.  All her previous waiting would be in vain and hence the tears. 

Under pressure of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank many powerless African governments have been forced to introduce cuts in health care and education and introduce charges for treatment.  Theresa`s tears that day were the human consequences of these policies.  No doubt there are many people like Theresa in Africa.  The poorest of the poor are bearing a burden with their lives for the policies of the banks.  The debt repayments, and also the arms trade and the unjust trade policies rob Africa of any economic progress.  A new brutal and insidious slavery is being perpetuated.

Ray Towey

(Ray Towey is a member of the Volunteer Missionary Movement and recently returned from East Africa as a missionary doctor.)

Report on Pax Christi conference, Italy, May 1986

1986-05-Report-on-Pax-Christi-conference-Italy

In May of this year (1986), Catholic Peace Action was invited to send two representatives to the International meeting of Pax Christi to present a workshop on civil disobedience.

Carmel and Ray went on behalf of the group to the conference, which took place in Vincenza, Italy. We offer you the content of what they shared in their workshop.

_______________________________________________________________________

I would like to begin by introducing ourselves. My name is Carmel Martin and the other member of CPA here with me is Ray Towey. We have been asked to make a contribution on the subject of civil disobedience. We have been described as experts but we are not. If we were we wouldn’t be so nervous! We are members of a group that has existed since the summer of 1982 and who are trying to discover what it means to be faithful in the nuclear age. I will give a brief background of the group. Ray will then reflect on the subjects of civil disobedience, communication with those directly involved with war preparations, and the Church; I will then close with some thoughts on how we express our faith at the Ministry of Defence, and the consequences.

The formation of CPA occurred after a number of individuals had met during periods of pilgrimage, prayer and fasting. Our meeting we feel was a gift from God. There were seven of us who after some discussion and prayer had decided to be more fully committed to nonviolence, compassion for each other and to preparations for witness against the nuclear threat by engaging in non-violent civil disobedience.

We agreed that the doctrine of nuclear deterrence is incompatible with the will of God, and in regard to nuclear war preparations, civil disobedience is Divine obedience.

At our first few meetings we did not give ourselves a time limit as to when we would engage in civil disobedience. We wanted to remain open to the Holy Spirit.

Civil disobedience is a spiritual calling and a matter of discernment. In fact the process of discernment, and personal and group spiritual preparations prior to civil disobedience are as important as the action itself.

Since April 1983 we have been involved in nine acts of civil disobedience, which have resulted in over 50 arrests and 140 days in prison. The other part of our peace work involves communicating with the workers of the Ministry of Defence. Since August 1983 we have given the workers a message through a twice-monthly leaflet which expresses our concerns on peace, disarmament and their work.

Our group is not just concerned with action but with each other. We meet regularly not only to plan the next action but to share a meal, pray, discuss things and enjoy each other’s company. Two of the original members are no longer with us and others have joined and stayed for various lengths of time. We are an affinity group not a membership organisation. However we do put out a newsletter and our supporters help us through prayer, financial contributions and joining us at the Ministry of Defence in the work of communication and during our days of civil disobedience. More recently, we have started open/public meetings for the purpose of bringing others more closely into the prayer and spirit of the work.

Ray made his contribution at this point:

My name is Ray Towey. I work as a fulltime hospital doctor in London. I have been a doctor for 19 years and for 3 years I worked in Africa of which two were spent at a Catholic Mission Hospital.

As Etienne said in his preaching so eloquently this morning at Mass, my own exposure to the diseases of poverty have had a deep effect upon me, and my understanding of the Church’s option for the love of the poor, Christian peace making and the contribution of lay missionaries to the growth of the Church. Over the last 2 and a-half years I have been arrested by the police 5 times and I have been sent to prison for 3 short prison sentences. It is from this situation I wish to give you my reflections.

Catholic Peace Action is essentially a response by a small group Of Christians who have come to the realisation that a monstrous evil has developed within their country, namely sincere plans for the use of nuclear weapons, that is sincere plans for nuclear genocide. The deployment of Cruise missiles in 1983, the planned building of the Trident submarines and the refusal to support a comprehensive test ban treaty, have all exposed the failure to commit our country to a process of nuclear disarmament which the teaching of the  Church clearly demands.

We see the policy of deterrence as incompatible with the Gospel values, and a blasphemous denial of Jesus as the Lord of history. In our society the willingness to engage in nuclear war has put the security of the state above all moral considerations. When the state assumes such awesome and immoral intentions, which has been described as idolatrous, the Christian community to be true and faithful to its vision of God’s will for humankind, must respond, speak out and preach the Gospel. Nuclear weapon states have a moral posture, which is fundamentally flawed and consequently forfeit the total obedience of their citizens. CiviI disobedience is an attempt to speak out with clarity in a way which appropriately reflects the seriousness of our situation. Nuclear weapons are protected by secrecy and the legal framework of the state. Laws which in themselves are not immoral, are used by the state to protect a policy of nuclear genocide.

The policy itself is protected and paid for by a process of normal good citizenship, the payment of taxes and the rights of property and land. Civil disobedience challenges the moral basis of laws which protect nuclear weapons and nuclear war planning. It exposes the moral crises we are in and distances those who participate from complicity in the nuclear system of values. It draws on the prophetic ministry of the Church in exposing the slow and subtle way in which the state has entrapped the Church within its own system of values.

The preaching of the Gospel of non-violence and the unity of all humankind, which nuclear weapons deny, must, be done not under the conditions or control of the nuclear weapons state but in opposition to and in non-violent confrontation with the nuclear system of values. To us civil disobedience is an open clear non-violent breaking of certain laws which place us in direct confrontation with the authorities of the nuclear weapons state.

Combined with civil disobedience, dialogue with the supporters of nuclear deterrence is an acknowledgement of both the need and the possibility of conversion to peace. Dialogue is an essential requirement in respecting the dignity and humanity of our opponent. Civil disobedience without dialogue is a cynical and flawed appreciation of the humanity of our opponent to understand and choose the non-violent alternative. However dialogue without civil disobedience does not fully relate to the danger we are in, the moral crises which surrounds us, and the capacity we have with trusting obedience in God to confront the values of the nuclear state. Civil disobedience re-establishes the authority of the Church, which transcends human laws at a time when human laws protect the means of genocide.

“Resistance (civil disobedience) without dialogue is cynical, dialogue without resistance is sentimental” (Jim Douglas Ground Zero Community USA)

For us dialogue involves twice-monthly legal leafleting of the workers as they enter the Ministry of Defence in the morning. This persistent twice-monthly presence continued now for over two years has made us well known to the workers. Many of the workers are keen to receive our leaflets, they understand our position and a very few communicate back to us. We have built up also a respect with the police who arrest us and it is not unusual for us to engage in discussions on the nature of deterrence, the limitations of obedience to the law and the reasons for Christian resistance. In the courts also we have established a moral presence and a mutual respect where our motives and values are discussed. We see these as signs of hope in the capacity of society to begin to make a change of heart to peace and disarmament.

The place in which we choose to break the law is the headquarters of our military planning the Ministry of Defence in central London. It represents the centre of our country’s nuclear war planning. Everyone in our group live near central London and for most of us this is our nearest nuclear war planning establishment.

Scattered throughout Europe all of us live in close proximity to the places for nuclear genocide and all of us could begin to challenge the military communities with the values that the Christian communities profess.

We are not saying that civil disobedience is the only way to proclaim the Gospel of Peace in a nuclear weapons state. The failure of my country to commit itself to a plan for nuclear disarmament and its continued preparations for the use of nuclear weapons breaks the conditions for nuclear deterrence demanded by current Church teaching.

The opportunity for the Church to engage with this situation within the legal framework of the state has substantially not been made.

Our acts of civil disobedience are a prophetic call to take these legal opportunities, which could awake the consciences of many both in the Church and outside the Church. What is at stake for the Christian in a nuclear weapons state is the authentic life of the Church itself in our time “The Church seeks but a solitary goal, to carry forward the work Of Christ himself.” (Gaudium et Spes.)

The Church is called to be a living witness of Christ in the world, a community of love open to the whole world. If the Church does not extricate itself from any possible support for nuclear genocide then its mission as a light to the world is fundamentally threatened and when the missionary life of the Church is threatened the life of the Church itself is at risk.

We see our actions as a call to renewal in the life of the Church so that Christ will be seen more clearly in the world. We see our actions as rebuilding the Church at its very roots, as a call to conversion and as establishing the authority and identity of the Church in our own society.

We have begun a dialogue with a small number of our own bishops to seek their support and to convey our own vision for their discernment. We dialogue and reflect with Christian peace activists of other traditions to share and reflect where the Holy Spirit is leading us. We see real signs of conversion to peace both in and outside Church structures, which gives us strength in our non-violent choice and hope.

–End of Ray’s presentation–

Carmel continued with her presentation at this point:

Because our acts of civil disobedience/Divine obedience are firmly rooted in our belief in God, as members of the Catholic Church we use the symbols of our faith when we go to the Ministry of Defence. Christians working for peace need to be able to use the forms and symbols of religious observances to help them confront the violence and injustice of our day.

Through the use of religious symbols our witness and message are graphically conveyed with a clarity and strength that words alone could never match.  Involving religious forms and symbols outside the confines of the church buildings has a three-fold effect.

The first is to help the individual resister in his or her particular witness. Faith is strengthened when the forms and symbols of faith are near and in use. Secondly, they convey to a largely indifferent and sometimes hostile public that something more than just a political statement is being made. And thirdly, they challenge the Church and other members of the Church to move away from a solely individualistic and enclosed view of religion.

For these reasons and others we have always engaged in civil disobedience at the Ministry of Defence in the context of a liturgy and sometimes on significant liturgical dates e.g. Ash Wednesday.

The forms and symbols of our faith have included prayer, song, readings from the Bible, preaching, the rosary, ashes, blood, a cross and bread. For us and our supporters such forms and symbols are given greater authenticity and deeper meaning when used in close proximity to symbols of death and violence, and by people who are taking risks and willing to suffer for the cause of peace.

To give one example: For the past three years we have been involved in an Ash Wednesday service at the Ministry of Defence. We meet first to pray, bless the ashes and read the bible. We mark our own foreheads (with ash) saying the traditional: ‘Repent and believe in the Gospels.’ We then walk to the Ministry of Defence building where with charcoal we mark the façade with a cross or the word “repent”. Those who mark the building are arrested and the others continue with the liturgy. By such actions we are calling ourselves and our nation to personal and corporate repentance.

By using the traditional forms and symbols of our faith we are saying to our Church and fellow Christians that this is one place where the Church should be on Ash Wednesday; and this is one way the Church should behave on Ash Wednesday.

Indeed, because we stand within our tradition we are saying that we are Church and doing our duty as Christians/Catholics.

Our work resulted in arrests, court appearances, and imprisonment, but these consequences would be completely without significance if they did not indicate a deeper spiritual struggle to live more non-violently and faithfully. For nonviolence is not confined to peace work at the Ministry of Defence but involves questions of lifestyle, the bringing up of children, and assisting the poor. The act of civil disobedience and all that follows is an expression of my struggle to achieve a more complete disarmament and conversion of heart. This conversion does not come easily.

My personal involvement in civil disobedience, and I have risked arrest five times, were acts of despair for the life of this world and my children’s future. (I have two small children and as you can tell, one on the way). I felt and still feel the need to somehow stand in the way of nuclear war preparations.  But because of the risks I have taken my despair has decreased and I have experienced a renewal of faith and hope.

When one looks at the state of the world and especially the nuclear arms race there can be little reason for optimism. But hope is a gift from God. It is tangible and it is made more abundant through the doing of justice and the making of peace.

Real hope generates hope. Our experience is not unique. In our relationship with friends, the police, prosecutors, and magistrates we have seen a conversion of heart that simply could not have taken place had we confined our peace witness to words and legal, non-arrestable actions. This conversion comes through risking and suffering done in the spirit non-violence.

Some Defence workers, prosecutors and police have said they agree with us. When one of our members went to prison, the first nun since the reformation to be imprisoned for an act of conscience, she received over 1,000 letters of support from all over the country.   Here was a church acting out the hope it so often proclaims. Despite what I have just said, engaging in civil disobedience is still extremely difficult for me.

A supporter of ours warned us two years ago that we as a group are open to charges of conspiracy and therefore could receive heavy fines and long prison sentences. Ray responded by saying: ‘The Church should be a conspiracy for peace.’ We have continued our conspiratorial ways and encouraged others to join us or form their own groups of prayer and resistance. It is these communities that will successfully confront military madness and bring us back from the nuclear abyss. Only when Christians make absolutely clear their total opposition to nuclear war preparations will the pseudo-Christian arguments which politicians and militarists use to justify their policies be exposed for what they are: arguments for genocide. In a generally wealthy and comfortable society the taking up of the cross of militarism is an option that it too easily ignored by our Church and fellow Christians. However, communities of prayer and resistance will be able to survive social penalties and Church silence and build a network that will transform both.

Constant conversion and persistent struggle will turn the tide. After an act of civil disobedience last August 9th, the police inspector, for the first time in 2 and a-half years, sat down with those of us he had arrested and asked, “why?”

The day will come and may it come soon, when heads of governments of all nuclear weapons states, will ask Cardinals and Bishops the same question: “Why are the people of your Church so disobedient?”

For God’s sake peace brothers

Once again Peace Sunday is being commemorated in churches up and down the country. To mark the occasion Dr Ray Towey explains how non-violent civil disobedience can bring about a world `no-go’ area for nuclear armaments.

IN A NUCLEAR weapons state Christians who pray for peace on Peace Sunday should consider the possible consequences. Prayer has a way of leading to action and to me this has resulted in three sentences to Pentonville Prison, What is it that moves Christians who are otherwise quiet and law abiding citizens to acts of non-violent civil disobedience for peace? It is because they have realised that in their country something is happening which is monstrously evil — the sincere plans for nuclear war with which many other Christians are scandalously implicated. To be faithful therefore I these normally law abiding people must speak out and act.

The immorality of nuclear deterrence has been succinctly described by the Scottish bishops in their 1985 peace message: “If it is immoral to use these weapons, it is also immoral to threaten their use.”

The Church, however, is more than a set of moral principles. The church is called to be a community of love, a living witness of Christ in the world. Each of us by our baptism are called to be missionaries and the world learns of Christ by the way we live the Gospel values.

In what sense can a genuine threat of nuclear genocide be compatible with proclaiming the Good News of Christ? If the Church does not clearly extricate itself from any possible support for preparations for nuclear genocide then its mission as a light to the world is fundamentally threatened and when the missionary life of the Church is threatened, the life of the Church itself is at risk.

Our nuclear weapons destroy our own spiritual life and Christian witness before they destroy our enemies’ physical life.

The intention to use nuclear weapons violates-God’s law and plan for creation. Nuclear weapon states have a moral posture which is fundamentally flawed and consequently forfeit the total obedience of their citizens. Christians in a nuclear state have a responsibility to stand in the way of preparations for genocide.

Nuclear weapons are protected by secrecy and the legal framework of the state. Engaging in non-violent civil disobedience challenges the moral basis of the laws which protect nuclear weapons, exposes the moral crises we are in and effectively distances the Christian from any complicity with the nuclear system of values. It withdraws consent and symbolically demonstrates the choices we have to make.

Done in a Christian nonviolent way and in a spirit of evangelisation and faith, Christian civil disobedience has a real power of conversion. It follows a line witness of Franz Jagerstatter and the life and example of Dorothy Day. In this sense non-violent civil disobedience is Christian obedience. For me it has resulted in three arrests and three prison sentences.

During one of my trials in June 1984, Bishop Gumbleton, Vice-President of Pax Christi International, sent a strong letter of support on behalf of a co-defendent, writing that she had acted sincerely and faithfully as a Catholic in her non-violent civil disobedience.

When Bishop Emerson Moor auxiliary in New York, was arrested on December 5 1984 while illegally blockading the South African consultate in New York, he became the first Catholic bishop in the United states ever to be arrested for an act of civil disobedience. The issue in this case was the current genocide of apartheid and not nuclear genocide, but the principles are comparable. Archbishop O’Connor of New York defended the action of his auxiliary bishop, pointing out that there must be instances when an illegal act is seen as “the only way to bring about the revocation or modification of intrinsically immoral law.”

The non-violent witness against nuclear weapons has been going on longest in the United States with thousands of people going through the courts and prison. In our own country Christian civil disobedience is going to be a continued Christian calling while we remain a nuclear weapons state.

We live in a time when the sanctity of human life is everywhere under challenge. The Church has spoken out courageously for the life of the unborn child and for the protection of the human embryo. We should not hesitate now to repudiate and resist any system of values which can contemplate the killing of millions of human beings in the name of national security.

Dr Towey is a member of Pax Christi and Catholic Peace Action as well us a consultant anaesthetist at a London teaching hospital.  This was first published in the Catholic Herald, 1 February 1985.

Prison conditions 1984

Sir, Dr.Richard Smith’s series of articles on the State of the prisons highlights a topic of genuine concern for the medical profession. Following an act of  civil disobedience as part of the Christian Peace Movement and my subsequent refusal to cooperate with a binding order to keep the “peace” I had occasion to experience at first hand, as a prisoner, conditions in Pentonville Prison for seven days. The lack of adequate hygiene exposes prisoners to potential medical risks as well as transgressing basic humane standards.

As a civil prisoner I had the right to wear my own clothes but once that right is taken association with with other prisoners is more restricted and no change of clothes or pyjamas is allowed.

I was offered one shower on the first night and another on the morning of release. Despite frequent requests I was unable to obtain a shower or bath during the five whole days of my imprisonment. This is merely a symptom of the gross lack of facilities and overcrowding in prisons and not due to any lack of correct behaviour on the of the prison officers, who did their best in diffcult conditions.

I was totally confined to my cell from 4 pm until 8 am the next day. A pot for urine is provided, and at 8 am the slopping out procedure is carried out. Although I was alone, most prisoners share two to a cell which is about six paces by three. The pots for urine to my knowledge were never cleaned. The room in which the slopping out procedure is carried out is a little larger than a cell and contains a sluice, a flush toilet, a washbasin, a urinal, and a hot and a cold water tap. The cold water tap is the water supply for the prisoners in that area. The hot water tap is generally the place for washing the plastic plates and mugs of the prisoners. The water runs directly into a drain in the floor, there is no sink, and washing detergent is not provided. Prisoners therefore often washed their plates and mugs by simply passing them through this stream of hot water a few times while at the same time and in close proximity urine was being slopped out; the urinal was being used, as was the toilet, which was separated from this area only by a door about five foot in height. There were often queues to use all amenities in this confined space. The hand basin was never used as there was no soap or towel there to wash one’s hands and the basin itself was often dirty. The collecting of clean water and the washing of plates and mugs are therefore carried out in an area of potential cross infection and in an atmosphere smelling of faeces and urine. Plates were sometimes washed in an adjoining room where there was hot water and a sink but it was left to the prison officers’ discretion as to whether this room was opened or not. Although it is obvious that many prisoners are from sections of the community that suffer major social deprivations, the prisoners often viewed their conditions in prison as outside normal human standards of our society. Major improvements in hygiene could be made without enormous financial investment if a policy was instituted to separate the facilities for washing plates and collecting water from the sluice and toilets and to improve handwashing facilities. Prison doctors themselves have raised doubts about basic hygiene in prisons (1), and the need for research on this topic is very pressing (14 January, p 129). It seems a small request that basic primary health care should be in our prisons; this would also go some little way towards making conditions for prisoners more humane.

London SW4

(1) Anonymous. Curb on jail protest doctor 1983 November 7 The Times