Plowshares Nun to be Released Thursday after 41 Months Imprisonment & other Anti-War NVDA Updates

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Sunday December 18, 2005 23:35 by Jonah

You Can Jail the Resister, But Not the Resistance!

Sister Ardeth Platte, O.P., a member of the Dominican Religious Order of Grand Rapids, Michigan and of the Jonah House Community in Baltimore, Maryland, is scheduled to be released from Federal Prison in Danbury, CT, on Thursday, December 22.

Sister Ardeth has completed her sentence of 41 months of incarceration, and now faces three additional years of supervised probation.

Writing from prison, Sister Ardeth declared : "This imprisonment has been sacred time - a plea for and end to war and nuclear weapons. I do not regret one day of it. I will continue to cry out : war never again, no more killings nor threats of genocide, no more illegal occupations and interventions in other people's lands."

Sisters Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson, also members of the Dominican Order, served 33 and 30 months respectively for their participation, along with Sister Ardeth, in the Sacred Earth and Space Plowshare action of October 6, 2002 when they entered a Minuteman missile silo site near Greely, CO, to "unmask the false religion and worship of national security" which they found there. Gilbert and Hudson were released from federal prison earlier this year.

During their trial in Federal District Court in Colorado, the three nuns offered their witness as "a nonviolent, symbolic action of inspection, exposure, and disarmament" of a Minuteman III missile, one of forty-nine such weapons presently on hair-trigger alert. They described their actions as an attempt to prevent the crime made explicit by the Nuclear Posture Review and in statements by the President of the United States that threaten the use of nuclear weapons. Theirs was a liturgy - in the words of the prophet Isaiah - "of hammering swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks."





ARDETH'S LAST LETTER FROM DANBURY
Ramblings and Reflections
Newsletter 29
December, 2005



Dearest sisters and brothers,

The month of my release has arrived. The December day (22 nd ) is near at had. I await the day and hour with patience, peacefulness, and much joy, having received the good news that I may return to the Jonah House community and mission. It was your prayers and letters to the Probation Office and Judge that helped change the decision from a strong “no” to “yes, you may live and serve in Baltimore”. I offer special thanks to each of you and to Senator Barbara Mikulski for your support. Your voices were heard.
Advent and Christmas

The Gospel messages that I am pondering this month are: “Beware, keep alert”, “Prepare the way”, “ God is present”, “Pray without ceasing”, “Give thanks always”, “Here I am, ready and willing”, “Rejoice and be glad”. Welcome to the Prince of Peace! May your holy seasons be so blessed!
Give thanks always

1. I thank God, people and creation for feeding my body and my spirit during this 41-month sentence.
2. My gratitude to Jackie and Carol. It is an honor to be a co-defendant with you for the peace with justice for which we yearn. “God, help us to be peacemakers in a hostile world.” Thank you, Anne Montgomery, RSCJ for uniting with us in our statement and in spirit by your presence in the war zones of Iraq and Hebron throughout these years.
3. I am grateful for the commissioning service by our Dominican Sisters Community to serve imprisoned women and to continue the work for justice and peace during these years of incarceration. Your prayers and letters of encouragement kept me alive spiritually.
4. Thank you, dear Jonah House Community – Liz, Susan, Gary and all who shared periods of time in love and work –Steve, Kevin, Mary, Mike, Sarah, Betsy, Shirley, Harold and many others by work weekends, donations, serving the poorest and helping with the gardens.
5. Thank you for the books written highlighting our action, for the journalist interviews, for reporters' articles, for the documentaries, songs sung, poems written and for the awards you bestowed on us. May each of these further the Kingdom of God on Earth as it is in heaven. Your social responsibility is needed now more than ever. You spread the word, the truth we tried to speak.
6. Thanks to the unnamed persons who prayed with us, assisted us to complete this action of inspecting, exposing and symbolically and nonviolently disarming the Minuteman III N8 missile silo on October 6, 2002.
7. My gratitude to the entire Dominican family throughout the world. I trust that God hears our united family plea for peace and our yearning for basic human needs – food, medicine, shelter, education, freedom to practice faith – for every person in every corner of Earth. May we continue to direct our efforts in waging peace together.
8. My deep gratitude to every lawyer who strove to have the laws of this land affirmed that substantiated our Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares II witness: Walter Gerash, Susan Tyburski, Scott Poland, James Scherer, Clifford Barnard, Francis Boyle, Ved Nanda and Anabel Dwyer, friend facilitator of the united effort – you are each brilliant, committed, caring defenders of us, the Constitution and International Law. Words limp when we acknowledge your devotion, time and legal skill.
9. Mary Casper, your dedication and contribution of support by sending my monthly newsletters that total 29 to many thousands of people all over the world by postal and e-mail service deserves a resounding shout of thanks. Thanks to every person who sent these letters to others. Thank you, Pat McCorminck, Bill Sulzman, the Somsel-Kobasa family, Many Benson, Martha Hayward, Sisters Lynne Hansen and Mary Benedict O'Toole, Wendy Leitner, all the Jonahs and many others who sent personal letters for me. Thank you for your regular packages of xeroxed materials – Bill, Lee, Mick, Joni, Betty and Pat, John, Mary Lou, Bern and your photos, Nancy, etc. Thanks for every communication from every person on each continent who wrote loving and informational letters. I hold each of you in heart and prayer.
10. I thank you, dear prisoners and staff I have met along the way at Clear Creek County Jail, Pueblo Jail, Warsaw, GA, Oklahoma and Danbury Prisons. Thank you, Joyce, Betsy, Alice, Shirley and Sr. Lil, prisoners of conscience who walked some months with me at Danbury and lifted my mind and filled my heart. We breathed scenic beauty together also.
11. Thank you for each visit from those of you who were able to break through the intense scrutiny of the system: Steve, Anne, Clare and Rachel Somsel-Kobasa, Tim, Kristin, Hannah and Luke Boylan, Maureen, Joergen, and Frances Kehoe-Ostensen, Linda and John Hutchins, Bill Sulzman, Mary Casper, Joe Morton, Anabel Dwyer, Doug Roche, Bobbi Farr and Pat Harbilas from Prisoner Visitation.
12. I am grateful for those who helped me mourn for my dear friends who died during my imprisonment: Phil Berrigan, Elmer Maas, Helen Casey, Mom (Aunt) Keilen, Carlene Rau, Lou Oates, George Wilson and many dear Dominican Sister friends. I had an experience of spiritual presence through the tears and with celebration of their lives.
13. Thank you for your magazines, newspapers, Catholic worker papers, Open Door, subscriptions and many books. The last three are: New Light from Old Stones by Leslie Hoppe, OFM; Dancing to the Concertina's Tune by Jan Walker; and U nmasking Apocalyptic Texts by Dorothy Jonaitis, OP.
14. I am grateful to you for giving me opportunities to write interviews, articles, homilies, statements, etc. and for your sharing them with others.
15. I am very thankful for the grace to forgive Judges, Prosecutors, FBI agents and Jury for their harsh judgment of our loving, non-violent obedience to the laws of God and international law. I pray for their understanding and conversion in the years of their lives remaining, that they may join in the cause of nuclear disarmament, ending war forever and tearing down walls that divide. Martin Luther King said, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. The one who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a permanent attitude.”
16. I am thankful for this imprisonment in which I have become more convinced of the failure of the system and the reasons I have remained a strict abolitionist. In my younger years I offered alternatives to the prison system. Let me cite some serious problems here: the facility is one overcrowded unit building in which sewage backs up in the kitchen and dining hall; leaks throughout the building that cause floods and mold; machines are in constant disrepair (water fonts, laundry equipment, etc.) Women have serious health needs and a long bureaucratic system frequently fails them. Four women died during my stay (ages 27-52). On the FCI compound there were suicides and deaths also. Work is frequently makeshift at 12 cents an hour. I believe poor work habits are taught and exemplified. There is little to nothing in the form of rehabilitation or correcting relating to the causes of incarceration. The system perpetuates subjugation, domination over, dictates and more oppression. Commissary, phone and newly initiated e-mail costs continue to burden families caught in poverty as women try to keep families bonded from inside. Warehousing women is more destructive than helpful. Recidivism escalates. I'm ready to concur with Ed Griffin's article in the Oct. 9, 2005 issue of Catholic New Times of Canada: “Prison is a Sin.”

Yes, I am thankful for all these experiences and am joyfully looking forward to my release….and the next part of the journey.

Lovingly and gratefully,
Ardeth Platte #10857-039
Federal Correction Institution
33 ½ Pembroke Station
Danbury, CT 06811