Steve Kelly SJ
Biography
Father Steve Kelly SJ is an American Jesuit priest and one of the most prolific Plowshares activists in U.S. history. He was a member of the Prince of Peace Plowshares affinity group that boarded the USS The Sullivans at the Bath Iron Works in Maine on February 12, 1997 and hammered on the Tomahawk cruise missile launching system. Kelly was sentenced to ~28 months in federal prison and served at LSCI Allenwood, Pennsylvania, released in June 1999. He has participated in additional Plowshares actions including the November 2, 2009 Disarm Now Plowshares at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and the April 4, 2018 Kings Bay Plowshares 7 action at the Trident submarine base in Georgia.
On February 12, 1997, four Plowshares activists — Susan Crane, Steve Kelly SJ, Tom Lewis, and Steve Baggarly — boarded the USS The Sullivans, a guided-missile destroyer being outfitted with the Tomahawk cruise launching system at the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine, and hammered on and poured blood over the missile launchers. The action took the name Prince of Peace Plowshares. Steve (Stephen) Kelly, S.J. is an American Jesuit priest and peace activist associated with the Plowshares movement. He has spent much of the past decade in prison for participating in nonviolent actions against U.S. nuclear weapons, including protests that involved hammering on D-5 Trident missile components.
Kelly was one of the seven members of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, who on April 4, 2018 entered the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia as a symbolic act of disarmament against nuclear weapons. A federal court convicted the group on felony and misdemeanor charges. For his role, Kelly was sentenced in 2020 to 33 months’ imprisonment plus probation and restitution, with credit for time already served awaiting trial. Stephen Michael Kelly, age 69, was one of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 (KBP7) Catholic anti-nuclear activists who broke into Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in St. Marys GA on April 4-5, 2018 to protest Trident-class nuclear weapons. Convicted on all four counts; 33 months federal prison.
Jesuit priest and one of the most-imprisoned Plowshares activists. Per public record (these actions are title-only on the chronology page) he took part in the 1995 Jubilee Plowshares West (Lockheed-Martin, Sunnyvale, CA), the 1996 Weep for the Children Plowshares (New London, CT), the 1997 Prince of Peace Plowshares (Bath Iron Works, ME), the 1999 Plowshares vs. Depleted Uranium (Middle River, MD), the 2009 Disarm Now Plowshares (Bangor, WA) and the 2018 Kings Bay Plowshares 7 (Kings Bay, GA).
The November 12, 2019 NYC Anarchist Black Cross compilation reproduces reporting on the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 jury verdict of October 24, 2019: conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property and trespass. It describes the defendants other than Stephen Kelly as free at home awaiting sentencing, while Kelly remained jailed. The reported twenty- or twenty-five-year maximum was a possible penalty, not an imposed term or actual service. Later dispositions remain separately recorded. Source: https://nycabc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/updates-12-nov-2019-1.pdf#page=2
The October 2017 Ground Zero account names Steve Kelly SJ among the Pacific Life Community Six arrested after crossing onto Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor on March 7, 2017. It reports release after trespass charges and ban-and-bar letters, followed by a guilty verdict before Magistrate Judge David W. Christel. All six received 100 hours of community service and $40 in fees; Kelly received one year of probation. The article does not report a jail sentence for this disposition or a complete arrest-processing duration. Source: https://www.gzcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/October-2017-newsletter-for-web-2.pdf#page=2
The Paschal 2023 Catholic Peace Fellowship Philadelphia newsletter reports participation in the January 28, 2023 Chestnut Hill College discussion following a screening of The Nuns, The Priests and The Bombs. The profile describes his father as a career Air Force officer, family residence in Turkey, and later work with refugees in Sudan and El Salvador as influences on his commitment to nonviolence. It reports more than eleven aggregate years imprisoned as of 2023; that retrospective cumulative claim is not an exact lifetime total or an individual case duration. Source: https://www.cpfphila.com/ARTICLES/2023_May/2023-05-Paschal-CPF-Newsletter.pdf#page=8
Separate custody episodes review October 13, 2026: DOJ confirms the March 28, 2011 sentence. Its verdict announcement explicitly says the defendants remained free; the arrest-to-release duration is not continuous custody. The original May 22, 2013 NCR report confirms June 21, 2012 release and individually documents the subsequent March 29, 2013 warrant detention and May 20 sentence. That missing episode is added separately, leaving actual release blank rather than using the May 29 prediction.
Executed custody follow-up October 13, 2026: Joshua McElwee's original March 29, 2011 report, including an immediate post-hearing interview with the legal support team, explicitly says the defendants were remanded directly following the preceding day's sentence. March 28 admission is therefore added independently, not inferred solely from sentencing. Original Nuclear Resister issue 170, page 4, rendered and visually inspected, explicitly documents May 24, 2013 release from the later warrant detention; the original support site's news flash corroborates it. This establishes actual discharge and supersedes the previously unresolved May 29 prediction.
Separate March 4, 2018 brief Nevada detention and same-day release
The April 2018 Ground Zero newsletter, original page 6, individually names Steve Kelly SJ among twenty-four Pacific Life Community participants arrested at the Nevada National Security Site on March 4, 2018. Felice Cohen-Joppa’s report says the participants crossed the site boundary, were escorted to a nearby pen, briefly held, processed and released. This is a same-day temporary detention and release, not an overnight prison stay, a served-day sentence, or continuous custody beginning that day. No imprisonment counter or new discrete prison episode is added, and other case dates remain unchanged. This brief Nevada detention predates and is distinct from the April 5, 2018 Kings Bay arrest and later continuous custody; that later interval is not backdated to March 4.
1995 custody evidence and limits
The Fall 1995 Pathfinder independently identifies Steve Kelly with Susan Crane in the August 7,1995 Jubilee Plowshares West action and detention. The movement chronology clarifies state custody followed by release after48 hours and an August 11 federal-court appearance. Thus the existing August 7 intake is not proof of continuous custody through the later prosecution. No exact discharge day, later re-entry, completed aggregate or actual March 1996 sentencing is established by this source; the chronology’s proposed sentencing date is a forecast, not new confirmation.
Nukewatch Pathfinder, Fall 1995, printed page 7. Plowshares movement chronology, relevant1994/1995 action.
In a separate April 2009 Creech anti-drone protest, Kelly remained at Clark County Detention Facility after the other arrestees left, until shortly after midnight Easter Sunday.
