Sister Anne Montgomery, Plowshares leader against nuclear weapons, dies

[bananas]

http://www.uscatholic.org/news/2012/08/sister-anne-montgomery-plowshares-leader-against-nuclear-weapons-dies

Sister Anne Montgomery, Plowshares leader against nuclear weapons, dies

Wednesday, August 29, 2012
By Catholic News Service

Nuclear weapons posed such a grave danger to all life on earth in the eyes of Sacred Heart Sister Anne Montgomery that she devoted more than 30 years of years of her life to protest their stockpiling by the world's governments.

From participating in the first of the so-called Plowshares actions Sept. 9, 1980 until her sixth and last protest Nov. 1, 2009 -- for which she served two months in federal prison -- Sister Anne epitomized the "heart and soul" of a movement which has spanned the globe, several friends and fellow activists for peace said.

Sister Anne died of cancer Aug. 27 at Oakwood, the Society of the Sacred Heart's elder care center in Atherton, Calif. She was 85.

"Thomas Merton said it best that the highest obligation of Christian discipleship is the abolition of nuclear war taking the precedence over everything else. And she understood that," said John Schuchardt, who joined Sister Anne as one of the Plowshares 8 in 1980 at the former General Electric nuclear weapons plant in King of Prussia, Pa., where they hammered on nuclear missile casings.

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She taught at several Sacred Heart-run schools including those in New York City and Albany, where she experienced the challenges faced by poor and minority people. In 1975, Sister Anne completed training to work with children with learning disabilities and returned to New York to work with school dropouts in East Harlem.

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A funeral Mass was scheduled for 10 a.m. Sept. 15 at Oakwood. Burial will be in Oakwood Cemetery.

[polly7]

1. She was such a brave woman.

RIP Sister Anne.

[bananas]

2. In heaven there are no nuclear weapons, so rest in peace Sr. Anne!

http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/letendre/2012/aug/28/heaven-there-are-no-nuclear-weapons-so-rest-peace-/

In heaven there are no nuclear weapons, so rest in peace Sr. Anne!

By Linda LeTendre
Tuesday, August 28, 2012

<snip>7

She was also an witness for the Gospel of Peace. She was an active member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, spending a good deal of time over several years ministering to the people in occupied Palestine and the other areas occupied by Israel. She did things like risk her life to get food to people that the Israeli army was keeping in their homes or churches by gunpoint. Arrested numerous times, she participated in six Plowshares Actions.

On Jan. 11, 2007 I had the honor of sharing a holding cell with her for the first Witness Against Torture action in the Federal Court House in Washington, DC. She carried a copy of the Christian Testament in her pocket (one of the small Gideon copies you find in hotel rooms), pulled it out and reminded us of our roots in peacemaking. She also regaled us with the behind the scene stories of the Plowshares action in King of Prussia, Pa., on Sept. 9, 1980. She and seven other went into the GE Re-entry Division, hammered on two nose cones of Mark 12A warheads, poured their own blood on warhead documents and order forms, and prayed for disarmament and peace. Seems the local constabulary didn't know how to handle having both male and female prisoners at their jail. And the contortions they went through to keep Sr. Anne and company there were pretty funny.

When I met Sister Anne, I was absolutely awed by her. I immediately felt in the presence of someone holy and sacred. I wanted to soak up her every word and everything she had to offer. They also taught us the larger lessons of God's Law vs the laws made by people. She often said of her Plowshares actions that she really had no other choice but to say stand and no to nuclear weapons and war - and take the consequences.

“Who’s going to do this if we don’t,” she told a reporter after her arrest in an anti-military demonstration in September, 2000.
“If anyone should take a risk, it should be the religious. That’s what many religious orders were set up to do, but we’ve lost that spirit through the ages.”

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[bananas]

3. Anne Montgomery, rscj: Peace is her passion

http://www.rscj.org/node/228

Anne Montgomery, rscj: Peace is her passion

Sister Anne Montgomery’s quest for nonviolent solutions to the world’s problems has led to her “ministry of presence” in the West Bank.


Anne comforting a Palestinian girl as she watches her family's orchard being destroyed by Israeli bulldozers, August or Sept. 1998.

<snip>

It was April 23, 2002. Sr. Anne Montgomery RSCJ was hunkered down with other Christian Peacemakers in an apartment in Bethlehem during the standoff at the Church of the Nativity, where some 200 armed Palestinians had taken refuge against advancing Israeli troops.

The 75-year-old nun’s passion for peace had taken her again to the Middle East, where she’s spent a good part of her life for the past seven years. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Brooklyn-based Montgomery spends most of her overseas months, her ministry has been one of presence, serving as an international observer in the interest of justice and peace.

“The situation in the church is desperate,” Montgomery said in a telephone interview from her apartment. It was close enough to the church that the group could hear periodic gunfire as well as a distracting low hum emanating from speakers that Israelis had positioned over the church. The speakers had been hoisted up on cranes that hovered threateningly overhead.

<snip>

Montgomery works with the Chicago-based Christian Peacemakers Teams, an outreach of congregations of Mennonites, Quakers and Church of the Brethren aimed at reducing violence around the world. According to Claire Evans, a peacemaker who works in the Chicago office coordinating delegations, teams of volunteers are dispatched to areas of conflict around the world.

<snip>

Her peacemaking ministry has led Montgomery to other war-torn regions. She went to the Balkans during the war there in the 1990s. She has engaged in many demonstrations aimed at ending violence in its various forms.

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[sinkingfeeling]

4. Rest in Peace, eternal.

[locks]

5. A child of God

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God

[gopiscrap]

6. RIP

I met Sister a few times when protesting in Western Washington....what a light, what a leader!!!