Pax Christi’s account of Burghfield Lockdown.

Pax Christi members and some Quakers gathered at The Mearings , North Entrance at 6.20 am on 2 March. Carrying a banner, Christians Together for Peace and Justice, they walked into the road way to attempt to prevent workers from entering but were quickly pulled away by the police. We re-grouped at the side of the road with our banners and agreed to maintain our presence there. During the Sunday preparation three lovely students from SOAS attached themselves to us and came with us on Monday morning. Two of them joined the very lively French group who maintained a presence in the road throughout.

Each hour we led prayers and singing which included readings from victims of nuclear war, Masahiro Sadanaga and nuclear testing Karipbek Kuyukov from Kazakhstan and Yami Lester from Australia. We used scripture readings that promoted a vision of a world without war, prayers and intercessions that called for redirection of resources and political will towards life-giving projects. We also used the words of Pope Francis:

“Nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutually assured destruction cannot be the basis for an ethics of sisterhood and brotherhood and peaceful coexistence among people and states… the desire for peace, security and stability is one of the deepest longings of the human heart. This desire can never be satisfied by military means along, much less the possession of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction”

During the morning we were joined by Emma from FoR with her trumpet (before she joined the band) and by members of Christian CND and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship who led the workship at 11.30 with Sue Gilmurray and her keyboard. During this session the Rector of St Mary’s Parish Church, Burghfield, Revd Gill joined us and led a prayer.

Although they could not be with us several church leaders sent messages of support: The Roman Catholic Bishop of Brentwood, the Anglican Bishops of Liverpool and Chelmsford, John Hull, Emeritus Professor of Religious Education at the University and Jose Henrique, General Secretary of Pax Christi International. Their messages were read out and I think gave encouragement to those who heard them!

For the final prayer session we moved into the road - with Sue Gilmurray on keyboard! By this time we had been joined by a number of seminarians from Westcott House, Oxford and they were able to take on readings and leading of some of the prayers.

Based on the press work we did we have seen some press reports on Independant Catholic News website, http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=26870

on Ekklesia website http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/21470

It was also reported on an ecumenical news site and there were paper reports in The Universe, Catholic Weekly and will look out for more. This is from our own site: http://paxchristi.org.uk/news-and-events/news-reports/march-2015/

Pat
Gaffney
General Secretary
Pax Christi
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