Martha Hennessy, fifth from left, was sentenced to 10 months in prison. (photo: RNS/Kings Bay Plowshare 7)
From RNS:
Martha Hennessy, a granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, was sentenced Friday (Nov. 13) to 10 months in prison for breaking into Kings Bay Naval Base in Georgia two years ago to protest its stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Hennessy’s was the lightest sentence given for the break-in at the Navy base 40 miles south of Brunswick, Georgia, on April 4, 2018, in which Hennessy, 65, was joined by six other Catholic pacifists. Together they are known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, named after the Plowshares anti-war movement founded 40 years ago by Daniel and Philip Berrigan, both Jesuit priests, and six others.
On Thursday, Carmen Trotta, of St. Joseph Catholic Worker in New York City, was sentenced to 14 months in prison, while Clare Grady of the Ithaca Catholic Worker was sentenced to 12 months. Both have spent their lives at Catholic Worker houses in New York state, which house and feed the needy. All were also sentenced to probation and will be required to repay the Navy base a total of $33,500 in damages…
…Hennessy is the only one of Day’s nine grandchildren to dedicate herself to what Catholics call “works of mercy,” practices considered of special merit in Christian ethics. She acknowledged she drifted away from the church as a young person but returned about 10 years ago and has since made the eradication of nuclear weapons her cause.
