Missile-protesting priest arrested in Colorado - the Denver Post
Frank Cordaro
From: Max Obuszewski <mobus...@verizon.net>
Date: Fri, Aug 7, 2009
Missile-protesting priest arrested in Weld Co.
By Kieran Nicholson
The Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/technology/ci_13008566
Posted: 08/06/2009 03:10:59 PM MDT
Updated: 08/06/2009 03:15:47 PM MDT
A 75-year-old priest from Illinois was arrested today at a U.S. Air
Force missile silo in Weld County.
The Weld County Sheriff's Office said in a media release that it
received a phone call at about 8:50 a.m. from an "agent with the Air
Force" about a trespasser at a silo.
The man was there to do "damage" to the silo, the agent told the
sheriff's office.
Carl Kabat, who has been arrested several times before for trespassing
on nuclear missile sites, was booked Thursday into the Weld County
Jail and held on suspicion of criminal mischief and trespassing, both
misdemeanors.
Capt. Mary Danner, chief of public affairs at F.E. Warren Air Force
Base in Cheyenne, said sensors detected a break-in at the silo.
Security was dispatched and Kabat was found behind a fence on the
grounds of the silo. He was held until a sheriff's deputy arrived,
Danner said.
Danner did not release details on the arrest, citing the case as ongoing.
She did say that Kabat was "peaceful during his entire detainment."
He's been arrested in Colorado and North Dakota in previous, similar
protests and has been convicted, spending at least 14 years in federal
prisons.
In 1994 he donned a clown suit and declared himself "a fool for
Christ," using a sledgehammer to beat on a silo in North Dakota. He's
placed bread, wine and a hammer on top of a silo and prayed for peace.
F.E. Warren Air Force Base is responsible for overseeing 150 missiles
in southeastern Wyoming, northern Colorado and southwestern Nebraska.
Danner said responders had no choice but to arrest him.
"The men and women in uniform, we defend people's rights to protest,"
Danner said. "But if you break federal laws in the process, you will
be arrested."
In a 2000 story in The Denver Post, Kabat laid out his cause.
"St. Paul says to do good and resist evil," Kabat said. "These weapons
of mass destruction, they're insane."
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knich...@denverpost.com.
---------------
Statement to the Press
"The Roman Catholic Church, of which I am a priest, at the close of
its Vatican Council II in 1965 condemned nuclear bombs as a crime
against humanity and are to be condemned unreservedly.
The World Council of Churches has proclaimed that 'the manufacture,
deployment or use of nuclear bombs is a crime against humanity.'
I support President Barack Obama's desire and have attempted to do my
little bit in his effort.
The nuclear bomb that is in the ground here is more than 20 times more
powerful than the atomic bombs we dropped on the Japanese. Each of
those bombs killed more than 100,000 people. At lest twenty times that
number totals more than 2 million people.
The Bible says in the words of Isaiah. 'They shall beat their spears
into pruning hooks and their swords into plowshares.'
May the Holy One have mercy on us for not doing so."
Fr Carl Kabat
For more info contact:
The Nuclear Resister "a chronicle of hope"
Jack & Felice Cohen-Joppa, editors
P.O. Box 43383, Tucson AZ 85733
Phone/fax (520)323-8697
E-mail: nukere...@igc.org