Friends,
In both webinars, August 6 & 9, hosted by the Hiroshima Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, Fr. Carl Kabat was remembered. For those who did not know this tremendous resister against nuclear weapons and other ill in our society, Art Laffin broadens our understanding of this remarkable citizen-priest.
Kagiso, Max
https://paxchristiusa.org/2022/08/08/fr-carl-kabat-presente/
AUGUST 8, 2022 PAX CHRISTI USA OBITUARY
Fr.
Carl Kabat, presente!
NOTE: All
of us at Pax Christi USA mourn the loss of Fr. Carl Kabat, OMI. We give thanks
for the witness and life of this prophetic peacemaker and ask for his
intercession for the work of peace as a member of the great cloud of witnesses.
By Art
Laffin, Pax Christi USA 2016 Teacher of Peace
On August
4, 2022 God called home Fr. Carl Kabat, OMI, age 88, a renowned Catholic
peacemaker and a friend to me and many Catholic Workers, members of Pax Christi
USA and the wider faith-based nonviolent movement for peace and justice. He
died at the Oblate Madonna House in San Antonio, Texas where he was in
hospice care since March.
Born on
October 10, 1933 in Scheller, Illinois, the third of five children, Carl grew
up on his parents’ farm. He was ordained a priest with the Missionary Oblates
of Mary Immaculate in 1959. His ministry including serving in the Philippines
and Brazil. In 1976, following his return to the U.S., he became associated
with Jonah House, a Christian resistance community in Baltimore, Maryland.
During this time, he was arrested for two peace actions at the Pentagon for
which he was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Carl had a close
affiliation with the Catholic Worker and lived for several years at the
Karen House Catholic Worker community in St. Louis.
In 1980
he took part in the Plowshares Eight action, the first plowshares witness
involving the symbolic disarmament of nuclear weapons. I can still see and hear
Carl leading the singing of “The Lord’s Prayer” at different time during the
Plowshares Eight court proceedings. Carl would go on to do seven other
plowshares actions. He spent a total of over 17 years in prison for acts of
nonviolent witness calling for nuclear abolition. He also was arrested on
several occasions for calling for the abolition of the death penalty.
Carl was
involved in four plowshares actions addressing the Minuteman II and Minuteman
III missile silos. In 1984, his brother Paul, also an Oblate priest, joined him
in the Silo Pruning Hooks action at a Minuteman II missile silo controlled
by Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Noster, Missouri.
Considering
himself a “fool for Christ,” he dressed as a clown for two of the Missile Silo
actions. On April 1, 1994 (Good Friday and April Fool’s Day), while still on
parole for the Silo Pruning Hooks action, he entered the Grand Forks Missile
Field in North Dakota dressed as a clown. After cutting through a fence
surrounding a Minuteman III missile silo (not scheduled to be deactivated under
the START I agreement), he proceeded to hammer on a combination dial for the
silo as well as the silo lid. He prayed, sang and hung a banner on the silo
fence which said “Stop Nuclear Weapons.”
(A play
was done about this action — A Clown, a Hammer, a Bomb and God —
by playwright Dan Kinch.)
On the
morning of June 20, 2006, Carl, along with Mike Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed,
dressed as circus clowns, walked on to the Launch Facility E-9 Minuteman III
nuclear weapon of mass destruction site in McLean County, North DK, on the Fort
Berthold Reservation of the Cheyenne Nation.
In a
statement he released explaining his August 6, 2009 plowshares action at a
Minuteman Missile silo 30 miles northeast of Greeley in Weld County,
CO, he declared:
“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.’ … 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…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.”
On July
4, 2011 and again on July 4, 2012, Carl entered the property at a nuclear bomb
plant under construction in Kansas City, MO. The Kansas City National Security
Campus (KCNSC) — formerly known as the Kansas City Plant — is a National
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) facility managed and operated by
Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies that manufactures 85 percent
of non-nuclear components that go into U.S. nuclear weapons. Explaining
his July 4, 2011 action he declared:
“I, Fr.
Carl Kabat, OMI, have been pondering an appropriate way to celebrate the
fourth of July, commonly called Independence Day. Today it would be more
appropriate to call it Interdependence Day since all of us live on this small
planet Earth. To show my patriotism and love for my country and the good of my
country, I have decided on a pruning hook action in Kansas City, Missouri. The
opinion of the 1995 World Court is that weapons of mass destruction are a crime
against humanity. Christian churches have said that it is a sin to build a nuclear
weapon. Churches have declared that nuclear weapons are a crime against the
Holy One and humanity and are to be condemned unreservedly! Some have further
stated that the manufacturing, deployment or use of nuclear weapons must be
condemned unreservedly. The Nazis during WWII killed and burned six million of
our Jewish sisters and brothers and five million sisters and brothers (who were
communists, priests, Gypsies, enemy combatants, homosexuals, people with
disabilities, etc). Now four of our Minuteman III’s could, in 30 minutes, go
halfway around the world and kill 12 million of our sisters and brothers. We
have become very sophisticated and efficient in our killing and burning. We
have more nuclear weapons than all the rest of the world combined and at one
time could kill everyone on this planet fifteen times over. Eighty-five
percent of the parts for nuclear bombs are made by the people of Kansas
City. May the Holy One have mercy on us all! By my action I wish to
enflesh the reversal of our insane actions and hope that we will start to
celebrate an interdependence and rid ourselves of nuclear weapons.”
Compelled
by the mandate of Gospel nonviolence and the Vatican II documents condemning
nuclear weapons, he implored the USCCB to condemn the possession and threatened
use of nuclear weapons as immoral, a stance that would later be adopted by Pope
Francis. And a new UN treaty would be enacted making nuclear weapons
illegal. In 2017 Pope Francis became the first to declare that the
possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. Also in 2017, an overwhelming
majority of the world’s nations adopted a landmark global agreement to ban
nuclear weapons, known officially as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons (TPNW). On January 22, 2021, the TPNW was ratified by 50 nations
and entered into force, thereby making nuclear weapons illegal under
international law. To date 66 countries have ratified the TPNW, however the
U.S. and other eight nuclear armed stated refuse to do so.
Tragically,
despite enduring long imprisonment for his steadfast Gospel witness, Carl was
not supported by the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. His relationship with his own
order was lacking in support and difficult. However, later in his peace
ministry this relationship changed. During Carl’s 2013 protest, his
then-provincial, Fr. Bill Antone, joined him in a witness at the
Kansas City nuclear weapons plant, saying he did it to protest nuclear weapons,
“but mostly to support Kabat.” “I’m here to be in solidarity with Carl and
what he’s done and, in [crossing the line], to show that there is an
affirmation and a support and understanding that what he’s done is
valid,” Antone said at the time, adding that Kabat had a “heroic
persistence” and has been “a real witness to our faith [and is] something that
we as oblates can be proud of.”
I first
met Carl in the late 1970s and for over four decades he was a great
inspiration. In between prison stints, Colleen McCarthy and I were blessed to
have him present at our wedding. He was also an athlete who enjoyed playing
basketball. It was always great fun to play with him, even if he always invoked
the “Kabat Rules.” He was also an avid St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan.
During
the last four months I was able to have several “virtual” visits with Carl
through WhatsApp, arranged by two longtime
friends, Chrissy Kirchhoefer and Cassandra Dixon, who were
accompanying him during his time in hospice. During my time with him his
eyes were mostly closed, he was resting comfortably and he didn’t speak. I
did make a point to convey to Carl, via Chrissy and Cassandra,
the love and prayers from many of his friends and
co-conspirators. Chrissy and Cassandra said he could hear what I was
saying and was able to open his eyes and smile at me at different
times.
Chrissy,
Cassandra, and Carl’s sister Mary Ann were with Carl earlier this week singing,
holding his hand and lovingly tending to him. When they were with him on
Wednesday (the day before he died), before leaving he was attentive the whole
time and even seemed to sing of sorts while his head was being massaged. They
conveyed to Carl everyone who was sending their love and prayers.
Carl’s
spirit was indomitable and his steadfast faith in following the nonviolent
Jesus was exemplary. During this August 6-9 time marking the 77th anniversary
of the criminal U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let us
recommit ourselves to working for the abolition of nuclear weapons and a
disarmed world and making God’s reign of justice, love and peace a reality.
Deo
Gratias for the life, friendship and courageous Gospel witness of Carl Kabat
who is now among the holy cloud of witnesses advocating for us!
For
Information about funeral arrangements, go to https://www.legacy.com/amp/obituaries/batesville/202522154
Read an appreciation piece by Tom
Fox in the National Catholic Reporter: https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/carl-kabat-priest-clown-and-relentless-anti-nuclear-weapons-protester-dies.
For YouTube interviews with Carl see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLATpydLAcc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMx5cyh_zNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q50ORv453HU
Art
Laffin is a Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace. He is a member of the Dorothy Day
Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C., is co-editor of Swords
Into Plowshares, and author of the new edition of The Risk of
the Cross: Living Gospel Nonviolence in the Nuclear Age.
Featured
image: Carl Kabat, April 2015, outside federal court in Kansas City, Mo.
Photo by Lu Mountenay.
Donations can be sent
to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at]
comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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