The Blood of Innocents

In my previous post, I talked about the remarkable Sister Pat McCormick of the Sisters of Loretto in Denver. The Sisters of Loretto are known for their dedication to social justice and activism, and they have been anti-nuclear activists, particularly anti-war activists, for decades. For more than thirty years, Pat McCormick joined the Sunday morning prayer group at the west gate of Rocky Flats to pray for peace and an end to the production of nuclear weapons.

Let’s go back to 1982. Rocky Flats was still producing plutonium pits for nuclear weapons at a breakneck pace, and it would be another seven years before the FBI raid on the plant would lead to a grand jury investigation and eventual shut-down. The government, the contractors at Rocky Flats, and the media (with the exception of a few brave journalists in Denver), continued to lie to the public about what was happening at the plant, how dangerous it was, and how local communities and the environment were being impacted by toxic and radioactive contamination from the plant. By the late 1980s, largely thanks to the actions of protesters and activists, the unsafe practices at the plant had attracted the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency and the FBI, and in June 1989 the facility was raided.