Father Carl Kabat OMI: Witness To A Nuclear Empire

September 18th, 2007

Father Carl Kabat, OMI visited the Oblate JPIC OFfice in Washington on September 6th. He was in town to speak at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House about witnessing to the Gospel of peace in a nuclear empire. Father Carl, a well known peace activist against nuclear weapons, talked about the challenges of global peace issues.

Fr. Carl spoke first about the struggle of social justice as rooted in the principle of human solidarity. This solidarity has its foundation in the equality of all people and peace as preached by Jesus to all people of good will. For him, solidarity allows a response to the poor in society.

The United States, being a wealthy nation, has a moral responsibility in the manner in which it accumulates material wealth and deals with third world nations ravaged by debt, poverty and preventable diseases.

Wealth unfortunately comes with the desire of greed to oppress other nations in order to accumulate more materials. Fr. Carl cited the Iraq war as an expansion of the empire mentality to grab more oil. He compared the importance of Washington DC to Rome during the Roman Empire; decisions made in Washington have tremendous influence world wide. Hence social activism and nonviolent resistance must be part of any strategy against such oppressive institutions.

He is saddened by how irrelevant the United Nations has become due to the actions of the United States government. He recalled, when he was 12, how excited Americans were about the role of the U.N at the end of World War II. Today, the U.N is toothless and has no real power to stop wars sanctioned by the powerful United States of America.

Father Carl has nonviolently protested against nuclear weapons since he came back from Oblate ministry in Philippines. Those peaceful protests against nuclear weapons have lead Father Carl to spend about 17 years in prison. Nuclear weapons are a grave threat to humanity, he said. No reason can justify the expansion, use and storage of nuclear weapons.

Father Carl challenged that if you cannot use nuclear weapons then, there is no point in keeping such weapons. It is almost like keeping lethal AIDS viruses in a container.

Lastly, Father Carl expressed joy at visiting the JPIC office and said he is happy to see the positive level of Oblate work in global justice and peace work.

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