By Rita McInerney

Lil and Bill Corrigan of Marietta have come a long way on their journey of faith since they met while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

They were among eight people arrested Good Friday morning for conducting a prayer vigil at the main gate for the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base near St. Marys, Ga.

The Corrigans, parents of four adult children, say they went to St. Marys “to be supportive, to get away for a few days from all this sadness.” Their grandson, 19, drowned in February in Oregon. Their grief is still fresh.

“We were not being threatening or provocative,” Lil Corrigan, who is 66, said. Martina Linnehan, she says, had told them that “there would be hardly anyone there. We’re going to do some nice things for Holy Week.”

Mrs. Linnehan and her husband John, leaders in the Trident To Life Campaign, live near the base at Metanoia, a house built by Habitat for Humanity and other volunteer labor. Mrs. Linnehan, among the eight arrested March 24, faces earlier charges after being arrested Jan. 15 while demonstrating against the arrival of the submarine. Tennessee, the first of 10 nuclear submarines to be based at Kings Bay.

“We needed to do something spiritual,” Mrs. Corrigan says. “What could be more meaningful than being arrested on Good Friday and on the anniversary of Bishop Oscar Romero.” Archbishop Romero was assassinated in San Salvador on March 24, 1980 while celebrating Mass.

Mrs. Linnehan told the Corrigans she had called the security office at the base and informed them of the prayer vigil and also informed the Camden County sheriff’s department.

“To me it was a bit comical,” Bill Corrigan, 69, said. “Here is this big base and only eight of us. We have three crosses and we’re praying. The security guard with the bullhorn told us we had one minute left. We started praying a little faster.”

“We were walking away and leaving,” his wife continued. Three men carrying crosses about four feet high. Bill Corrigan among them, went up to the gate to lay them on the ground. “At that point they came out running,” he said. There were at least 10 or 15 guards racing to round up the small group of people.

Part of the prayer service, they say, was the asking of three questions, recalling the three times Peter denied Jesus while he was being questioned before the crucifixion. They prayed:

“We have come to wait with Christ while He dies. We have come to beg forgiveness of Christ for driving the nails into His body. We have come to take the nails from the wrists, to take Him off the cross.” Each ended with “May we enter to pray?” The Corrigans had no identification on them when arrested. They were handcuffed, hands behind backs, and taken into the base security office where they were photographed and given citations. Mr. Corrigan was cited for trespassing on U.S. government property for unlawful purpose. “I was praying,” he comments, a lingering astonishment in his voice.

This was the first time the self-described “law and order” couple had been arrested. While she has been a support person for people doing civil disobedience in the past, the Corrigans say their taking part in the Good Friday prayer service at the gate of the base was “not an intentional act of civil disobedience.”

They will appear April 10 for a hearing in U.S. District Court in Brunswick, Ga. “None of us wants to plead guilty,” she said. “We’re not guilty.” At the same time they don’t relish the thought of risking jail if they plead not guilty and face a trial by jury. They want to be available if their sorrowing family in Oregon needs them.

How did these two World War II veterans, he an engineer for 32 years with Lockheed before retiring from the Marietta plant in 1986, find their way to south Georgia? How did they find their way to a nuclear submarine base where the subs carry missiles made by Lockheed in California?

The journey for these “very structured Catholics, very legalistic,” began several decades ago, before Vatican II, before the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Bill and I were always very concerned with justice. Even before the civil rights movement we were concerned with how blacks were treated,” Lil Corrigan said.

“We got involved. Our Lady of Lourdes was our parish for eight years,” Bill Corrigan adds. After the death of Dr. King their involvement broadened to include the Poor Peoples Campaign and marches on Washington.

In recent years, Lil Corrigan has been deeply involved, her husband as a loyal supporter, in the Cobb Interfaith Peace Study (CIPS). The group is made up for people from Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The Corrigans are parishioners at Holy Family in Marietta.

In 1986, Mrs. Corrigan’s idea, PJ’s For Peace and Justice, found support among women in several parishes who stitched sleepwear to be sent to children in the strife-ridden Central American countries. When the couple went to Central America in 1987, Mrs. Corrigan took some of the finished garments with her.

In El Salvador, the Corrigans visited the tomb of Archbishop Romero and met with Maria Julia Hernandez, director of Tutela Legal, the human rights office for the archdiocese of San Salvador. They found the atmosphere in El Salvador “overbearingly oppressive” but were inspired by the faith and courage of the people they met.

Bill Corrigan says of U.S. officials explaining policy, “We were told El Salvador was a democracy and the Nicaragua denied human rights.” But in El Salvador, in speaking to the people, they found a “pervasive sense of fear.” In Nicaragua, he adds, “We did not see any denial of religion.”

Mrs. Corrigan carries the conversational ball as the couple speak of their experience. The pleasant screened porch of their brick ranch home in Marietta, looking out on dogwoods in bloom, is relaxing. There is nothing here of war and oppression. Yet it is a home that has sheltered refugees, including a youth once a foot soldier with the contras in Nicaragua.

“I always tried to keep in mind where I come from before I judge anyone else,” Mrs. Corrigan explains. “I always considered myself patriotic. It irritates me when people say that if you criticize your country, you’re not patriotic.”

“I believe everyone is on a journey of faith. I believe your spiritual journey should lead you into the fullness of life. If you’re static, you’re not on journey.”

“Even in my conservative period,” and she admits she voted for Barry Goldwater for president in the 1960s, “activism made me a better Catholic, a better person, made me like myself better.”

“In those old days,” she admits, “I had a very punishing God. Now my God is a God of love.” This was very apparent to her on Good Friday at the nuclear sub base. “I really felt centered in faith.” For her, the “fullness of life is being right where people are - the homeless, the hungry, those in jail and hospitals, with suburbanites, with all kinds of people. That’s what I’m learning. I’m definitely still on a journey.”

A journey she could not have made alone, she emphasizes. “Bill always had deep faith, always respected people. He was the steadying force. He’s the compassionate one with a strong sense of humor. I’m the one who leads him into a lot of trouble.” Her husband grins.