Pax Christi USA learned from friends earlier today of the passing of Sr. Megan Rice, prophetic voice for nuclear disarmament within our movement and a member of the Transform Now Plowshares. Many of our members will remember how on the morning of July 28, 2012, the Transform Now Plowshares — Michael R. Walli, Sr. Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed — entered the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as a prophetic Christian witness to prioritize people over bombs. The three Catholic Plowshares activists performed a disarmament action in response to U.S. government plans to invest $80 billion to sustain and modernize the nuclear weapons complex.
Sr. Megan would go on to serve time in prison for the action, with many throughout Pax Christi USA signing petitions and taking action on her behalf. Her witness would reach countless millions of people through features like these in The New York Times and the New York Daily News.
“It is incredible to consider how the bravery of this small, smiling, unassuming woman in standing up to the entirety of the U.S. military-industrial complex could bring so much awareness to the devastation our nation’s idolatry of nuclear weapons inflicts on people here in the U.S. and around the world,” stated Johnny Zokovitch, Executive Director of Pax Christi USA. “All of Pax Christi USA grieves at her passing, but we give thanks for her witness, for her life, and for the challenge that she issued by standing up nonviolently for a better world for all of us.”
Sr. Megan Rice – PRESENTE!
Read more about Megan’s life and her own words in these selections below.
- Click here to read Megan’s obituary in The Washington Post.
- Click here to read this summary of the statement Megan made at her pre-sentencing hearing.
- Click here to read Megan’s statement and bio and those of the other Transform Now Plowshares activists at the action.
- Click here to read a letter from Megan while in prison in 2014.
- Click here to read an article Megan wrote for the website in 2019 on Plowshares activism.