Biography
Sister Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, of the Society of the Sacred Heart was one of the most prolific Plowshares activists in U.S. history, participating in seven Plowshares actions over thirty years and serving roughly six years of cumulative federal prison time. She was one of the original Plowshares Eight at the King of Prussia GE plant in 1980, then participated in Trident Plowshares (1982), Pershing Plowshares (1984), Riverside Plowshares (1992), Aegis Plowshares (1995), Trident II Plowshares (1995), and finally — at age 83 — the Disarm Now Plowshares action at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor on November 2, 2009 alongside Bill 'Bix' Bichsel SJ, Steve Kelly SJ, Susan Crane, and Lynne Greenwald. Convicted in the Disarm Now case at age 84, she received a sentence of two months plus four months of home confinement. She died in 2012 at age 85.
On September 9, 1980, eight Catholic peace activists — Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Carl Kabat, Anne Montgomery RSCJ, Molly Rush, Elmer Maas, John Schuchardt, and Dean Hammer — entered the General Electric Re-entry Systems Division plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where Mark 12A nuclear warhead nose cones were manufactured. They hammered on two of the nose cones and poured their own blood on documents, in a literal enactment of the prophet Isaiah's image of beating swords into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4). They were arrested at the scene and went to trial in Norristown the following year. Convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and criminal mischief, they were sentenced in 1981 to terms of 3 to 10 years; the case was on appeal for ten years before they were resentenced in 1990 to time served (just over a year). The action launched the modern Plowshares movement, which has carried out more than 100 symbolic disarmament actions worldwide since.
