Jailed Activist Targets ​“Culture Of Death”

Mark Colville has already served 15 months in jail for breaking into a Georgia naval base and spraypainting peace signs, stringing yellow police tape, and pouring symbolic blood from baby bottles onto submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles.

As he prepares to represent himself in court later this month, the Hill native and Amistad Catholic Worker House founder reflected on the close ties between his spiritual faith and anti-nuke resistance.

Colville, along with six other peace activists, broke into the Kings Bay Naval Base in St. Mary’s, George last April as part of the national Catholic pacifist Plowshares Movement.

At an interview Monday in his home at 203 Rosette St., Colville said the action reflects how he and his wife Luz have been living their lives, feeding the hungry breakfast and lunch at their family table, for the past nearly 25 years.

Colville has already served 15 months in the Glynn County Detention Center in Brunswick, Georgia, for the action. He has declined parole and has chosen to represent himself in the upcoming trial on Oct. 21 in the U.S. District Court of Brunswick County, in Brunswick, Georgia.

He was home at the end of a two-week interlude culminating in trial preparation.

Colville established the city’s Amistad Catholic Worker House by in the Hill, where it has always resided, back in 1994.

It’s part of a movement, founded by Dorothy Day, linking Catholic spirituality with performing works of social justice among the poorest

Colville has been away in jail long enough so that when a reporter asked for some sugar to put in the coffee he served, he had forgotten where the sugar is kept in his house. His wife Luz provided.

Colville had also forgotten where the spoons had gone — full disclosure, the house is undergoing renovations and some stuff has been moved around since Colville was last home.

What’s not moved at all, or only deepened, is Colville’s conviction that nuclear weapons are the ​“taproot,” to use his term, of so much of the poverty and violence in society.

That includes conditions on Rosette Street. There, Colville says, you see evidence of how a military budget devotes so much money to nuclear weapons, neighborhoods and their long-suffering residents linger in poverty for generations.

Although Colville has written eloquent dispatches from jail about his convictions and decisions regarding the case, the day before he left for pre-trial preparation, he sat down at his table to talk with this reporter.

A graduate of Manhattan College with a major in religion and peace studies, a married man and father, one of whose children is getting married in November, Colville spoke, with quiet earnestness, about a life of voluntary poverty and devotion. He spoke of being witness to the profound ways nuclear weapons help create what he terms ​“a culture of death,” and all the destructive social byproducts that flow from that.

Colville said his daughter is getting married in November. The trial should be over by then, and, if found guilty, Colville will likely have been sentenced by then. He said he hopes his time served will be the end of it and he will be able to attend the wedding and celebrate his daughter’s happiness, and more.

Colville’s wife, Luz Catarineau, said the breakfast and lunch program at their house will resume at the end of October whether Colville is able to return with her from Georgia, or not.

Not A ​“Prophet”

Following are excerpts from the Independent’s interview with Colville.

Independent: You have gone to jail before for committing similar anti-nuclear actions, I believe, in the mid-1990s. And not a lot has changed. What has prompted you to do so again?

Colville: Yes, a lot has not changed. Nuclear weapons have been called the taproot in our civilization. They contribute to the cheapening of life and inform the other forms of violence. [What is new is that] a deep connection is coming to the surface, between climate change and nuclear weapons. What’s of particular interest to me in this [the Kings Bay action] is that the willingness to use nuclear weapons is of a piece with a general willingness to rape the earth by digging for oil when we know we’re killing ourselves in the process.

You and your colleagues use the terms ​“prophecy” and ​“witness.” I think of Biblical prophets for whom there is a specific time and even location where God speaks to them, commanding them to action. Was there a specific incident or moment that triggered your decision this time, given that, as you knew, it would keep you likely away from your home and family for a long period of time?

You can make the argument that it’s nuclear weapons that inform a psychology of death. In fact the church teaches that we live in a culture of death. We seven [Colville and the other defendants] are all Catholics. Resistance to the culture of death is basic to being a Catholic in today’s world. That’s why nukes are important to me as a U.S. citizen and Catholic. When we talk about school shootings, we don’t talk about the cheapening of life that permits this. As we’re taught to live holistically in response to the culture of death, this action became [for me] unavoidable. I felt it was an invitation from my spiritual life that I couldn’t avoid.

The reportage in the National Catholic Reporter describes the Plowshares movement in the eyes of some as religious tilting at windmills, not prophecy or witness. How do you respond to that criticism?

I don’t like the ID ​“prophet.” Yet every baptized Christian is called to prophetic action. To be prophetic is to name reality in the present. When it’s effective it does point to the future. What is that line from the Denzel Washington movie, Fallen: ​‘Sometimes your only mission in life is to figure out what the hell is happening.’ To be a witness is to i.d. what is going on. Even the court [in its previous rulings] made some astounding statements. The judge said what we did was sacramental and prophetic. A sacrament calls into reality what you know to be true.

So what are the charges against you and do you plan to use what the court said about prophecy and sacrament in your upcoming preparations for your defense? To quote the court to itself?

There are three felony charges: destruction of government property, depredation of government property, and conspiracy. And one misdemeanor charge, criminal trespass. But when we did the action, I didn’t have in mind to dismantle a nuclear weapon! It was to perform a sacramental action.

And the defense will be what?

Three arguments:

International law at the World Court has found nuclear weapons to be illegal.

Necessity, where you break a law to prevent a far greater harm.

Closest to my heart is that the nuclear policy of this country has become a religion, in that it has the ultimate say over life and death. [As someone said:] Holding a gun to the head of the earth. The court has acknowledged the religious nature of our action, yet they seem not to allow us to say so to a jury, and instead are trying to treat us like common criminal trespass, and that’s a contradiction.

In your writings from jail you’ve quoted the Pope’s stated arguments against nuclear weapons. Are you getting any help or support from the Vatican?

We wrote a personal letter to the Pope immediately after the action. We know it was delivered. There’s been no answer. We’re making our case around his statements on nuclear weapons, that they are a moral evil that must be firmly condemned. He agrees with us that these weapons are being used on a daily basis.

What do you mean being ​“used on a daily basis”?

They are a direct theft from the needs of the poor. A war-based economy. To me, my life is at this table. We have a common table. Everyone’s welcome. No one is illegal. The war-based economy has devastated this neighborhood. When I take a stand against militarism, I’m fighting for my own neighborhood.

And how has this affected your family?

We’ve set up family life here placing a high value on being able, as a family, to take prophetic and sacramental action. I went to the base, but my whole family is with me.

For other Independent coverage of the Amistad Catholic Worker House, click here, here, and here.

Those interested in supporting the activities of the Amistad Catholic Worker House should contact Catarineau at: 203 – 624-5517. Or a check can be mailed to the group at 203 Rosette St., New Haven, CT 06519.