Plowshares in court keep the flame alive - six Catholic pacifists accused of damaging a US missile cruiser in the name of peace are convicted in a Portland, ME court - Cover Story

National Catholic Reporter, May 16, 1997 by Arthur Jones

PORTLAND, Maine - This sunny Sunday afternoon the bicyclists in the annual Maine Cycle Classic pedal furiously out of town into the countryside.

Still hours away -- in a rented car, a replacement for one that was in an accident -- Liz McAlister and her daughters, Kate and Frida, head up the interstates toward Portland. They're from Jonah House in Baltimore and on their way to the Prince of Peace Plowshares trial that begins Monday moRNing. Kate and Frida's father, Phil Berrigan, behind bars, is one of six defendants. Liz and Kate couldn't leave earlier: Saturday night was Kate's high school prom.

In Portland toward evening, as huge crowds pour out of country singer Alan Jackson's concert in the downtown civic center, smaller crowds head for the Woodfords Congregational Church.

Those going to the church, more than 300, are Plowshares supporters from as far away as Texas and North Carolina. They are Catholic Workers, Pax Christi members, peace activists of every persuasion.

Inside the church, huge crayon-signed letters circulate. They're being sent to earlier Plowshares protesters still imprisoned -- Rick Sieber, Michele Naar-Obed, Bruce Friedrich, Donna Howard Hastings, Laurentian Shield, Carl Kabat, Helen Woodson. And now the new Six.

These activists see the Cold War as a mask behind which the United States built up a nuclear arsenal it wants to keep. While Americans' attention is deflected by the Cold War's end, they argue, the United States has committed itself to nuclear security and committed its new weapons systems to perform a dual purpose -- for conventional warfare and as world-ending weapons.

By mid-evening, the huge "Scotia Prince" ferryboat, white lights beaming from a hundred portholes, enters the nearby harbor. Inside Woodfords Church, banjos are ringing and people are singing. The sleeping bag folk will lay down their swords and shields, "down by the riverside."

Dan Berrigan, a wispy figure with an imposing presence, tugs the moment out of the scriptures and into the Congregational church's huge downstairs hall.

Second Maccabees: The flame left in the cave. Rediscovered, it sputtered out, transformed itself into thick water which, poured on the sacrifice, burst into flame anew.

This crowd understands. Antithesis to materialist, corporate America and imperial mentality, their battered cars in the church lot have faulty clutches and missing brake lights. Designer labels are from the thrift store. Logos are barely discernible on worn sneakers.

These are the flames left in the cave. Their E-mail and fax networks, their free newspapers and small meetings, their houses of hospitality and rallying around the least popular causes keep in repair the national arteries and veins of antimilitarism and peacemaking.

Sr. Ardeth Platte, a Dominican from Jonah House, and the Maine-based organizers designate Group A: inside the courtroom; B: vigil outside; C: witness at Bath Iron Works where rests the USS Sullivan, Aegis missile cruiser, damaged and bloodied by the Six.

They do not deny it, these six: former high school teacher Susan Crane of Jonah House, mother of two sons; Jesuit Fr. Steven Kelly, Plowshares activist and member of Jubilee West Plowshares; Berrigan, father of three and forever the bur under the military saddle; Mark Colville, urban minister, father of three and a member of Cesar Jerez Catholic Worker m New Haven, Conn.; Steve Baggarly, father of one and a member of the Norfolk, Va., Catholic Worker; and Tom Lewis-Borbely, artist, etcher, father of one, of Worcester, Mass., the only one not in prison.

They want to explain why.

In Woodfords Church, the planning continues. When Group A comes out of the court, B goes in; C moves to vigil; A goes to Bath Iron Works. By Tuesday the Methodist church a block-and-a-half away from the courthouse will open its restrooms and kitchen. Monday night meal and sleeping bag space will be in Sacred Heart Church's cavernous downstairs.

By 7:30 a.m. on Monday, May 5, in Portland's early light, two drummers tap out a cadence and the first dozens arrive at the court house. Office workers, morning coffee containers warming fingers nipped by the sea breeze, look on in wonder and walk on amazed, dismayed or annoyed. The police are benign: These are nonviolent people. The marshals look officious with their stem gaze, blue blazers and white wires running from their ears like miniaturized extension cords.

Officialdom is civil, if a little proud. Security is strict. Bags are x-rayed, bodies screened. The imprisoned carry their files in hands iron-cuffed behind their backs. The Six are in.

Susan Crane and Mark Colville in prison day-glow orange; the others in street clothes: Jesuit Steve Kelly in black, Berrigan in a dark blue woolen cardigan, Baggarly in a dark green sweat-shirt, Lewis-Borbely in a salt-and-pepper sweater. Round-faced and mustached Chief Judge Gene Carter peers through bifocals and allows Baggarly to plead the case for a "necessity defense" which, no surprise, on Tuesday morning, after "taking it under advisement" overnight, Carter will deny.