PRIEST FACES PRISON TIME FOR BREAKING INTO NEW KANSAS CITY PLANT

A priest was arrested last week and is facing 18 months in jail after breaking into the National Nuclear Security Administration’s under-construction Kansas City Plant, which is being built several miles from the plant’s current home. Carl Kabat, who was identified by the National Catholic Reporter as a 78-year-old priest from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, is accused of cutting a hole in the perimeter fence around the construction site Tuesday and spending a night on the grounds of the facility. He was discovered and arrested Wednesday morning. The National Catholic Reporter quoted Chrissy Kirchhoefer, a member of the St. Louis Catholic Worker community who sometimes helps the priest with travel and other tasks, as saying that Kabat cut the fence to “allow all of the Holy One’s deer and other animals that once used the former bean field for its habitat” to return to the field. Kabat faces two trespassing charges and one charge of destruction of property; each of the charges include a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a fine of $500.