"Kansas City Priest Arrested After Breaking into Nuclear Weapons Facility" /NCRonline

http://ncronline.org/news/peace/kansas-city-priest-arrested-after-breaking-nuclear-weapons-facility
Jul. 06, 2012

By Joshua J. McElwee

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- "A priest who has spent almost two decades in jail for acts of nonviolent protest against the country's nuclear weapons complex faces another possible year and a half in prison after his actions on Wednesday.
Fr. Carl Kabat, a 78-year-old member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, faces three criminal charges after cutting through a fence and entering the grounds of the Kansas City Plant, a major new nuclear weapons facility under construction, to call attention to its building.
Kabat's action represents the latest in a years-long campaign by activists to call attention to the facility's construction.
Protests at the site, which is estimated to cost $1.2 billion and scheduled to be partially operational by early 2013, have been led in part by area Catholics who have also been leading petition campaigns to remove funding from the site.
One of the petitions, focused on developing a plan for reuse of the facility should it be abandoned in light of weapons cuts, was unanimously passed by the local city council in March.
Kabat told NCR after his release Thursday that he first entered the property of the Kansas City complex Tuesday, using bolt cutters to make a hole in a perimeter fence and walking through.
Kabat said he then spent Tuesday night on the grounds of the complex until he was found and arrested Wednesday morning.
In an email Wednesday explaining Kabat's action, Chrissy Kirchhoefer, a member of the St. Louis Catholic Worker community who regularly assists the aging Kabat with travel and other needs, said the priest's intent was to celebrate "Interdependence day" by "cutting as much of the fence perimeter" of the Kansas City plant as possible to "allow all of the Holy One's deer and other animals that once used the former bean field for its habitat" to come into the area..."