SENTENCING STATEMENT--Fr. Carl Kabat, OMI
November 16 , 2006
FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT
BISMARK , NORTH DAKOTA

Brother Judge, prosecutor and others: We are too much like Pilate. We are always asking “What is truth?” and then crucifying the truth that stands before our eyes.

Our minds are deformed with a kind of contempt for reality. Instead of conforming ourselves to what is, we twist everything in our actions and thoughts to fit our own deformity.

I believe that you, brothers Hoveland and Hochhalter, know that the Minuteman III at E-9 is insane, immoral and illegal, but your actions protected that insanity, that immorality and that illegality.

You refused to let international law be considered and ruled out the testimony of experts on international law. You know that a higher law trumps a lower law. Federal law is above state law and international law is above federal law.

Brother Hoveland, you could have possibly been a Rosa Parks, but your actions said “no.” You will probably not even be a Judge Miles Lord and unless there is a real turn-around, you will certainly not be one of the Germany Judges who, in 1980, blocked the transport of U.S. nuclear-armed Pershing II missiles. By the way the U.S. missiles are no longer in Germany .

We all can openly and publicly condemn North Korea for nuclear bombs. We can openly and publicly condemn Iraq for nuclear weapons and go to war with them. We can openly and publicly condemn Iran for nuclearism, but we do not publicly condemn the United States for the same.

All of the Catholic Bishops of the world in 1965, at the Vatican II Cunsel, declared, “Nuclear weapons are a crime against humanity and are to be condemned unreservedly.” Where is the open and public condemnation of nuclear weapons by our brother Bishop Zepfel here in Bismarck , ND ? Where is the open and public condemnation of nuclear weapons by you, brother prosecutor Clare Hochhalter?

As I have said, we are too much like Pilate. We are always asking, “What is truth?” and then crucifying the truth that stands before our eyes.

The Judge who sentenced Franz Jagarstatter, and Austrian peasant, to be beheaded in 1944 because he would not be part of the evil Nazi effort, cried when he sentenced Franz to be beheaded and it could be said of him what Shakespeare said of Brutus, “For he was an honorable man.”

I ask what is the use of post marking our mail with exhortations to “Pray for Peace” and then spending billions of dollars on atomic armed submarines, thermonuclear weapons and ballistic missiles? This I would say would certainly be what the N.T calls “mocking God.”

It can be said of brother Catholic Bishop Zepfel that he is an honorable man. The Catholic Church in 1965 declared, “Nuclear weapons are a crime against humanity and are to be condemned unreservedly,” so Bishop Zepfel why have you not condemned unreservedly? Brother Judge Hoveland, why have you not condemned the Minuteman IIIs unreservedly? Brother prosecutor Clare, why have you not condemned unreservedly the Minuteman IIIs?

Or is it as Shakespeare said, “For are not they all honorable men?”

Our minds are deformed with a kind of contempt for reality. Instead of conforming ourselves to what is, we twist everything in our actions, words and thoughts to fit our own deformity.

-- Fr. Carl Kabat, OMI