Gwen Hennessey, O.S.F., (born 1932) is a Roman Catholic Franciscan Sister and peace activist, most widely known for her protests against the School of the Americas.
While living in Chicago, she began to participate in the nuclear disarmament movement as a member of the grassroots activist organization, Clergy and Laity Concerned (CALC).
[1] Established in 1965 to organize religious leaders against the Vietnam war, by the 1970s CLAC had broadened to address a range of social justice issues, including the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
[1] She joined protests at Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the Army's School of the Americas, a facility for training Latin American soldiers.
Graduates of the program had been accused of several high-profile atrocities, including the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests and two women in El Salvador.
[1] Her sister Dorothy, at age 88, also refused a lighter sentence of house arrest, and was given a six-month jail term.
She served for forty five days at the federal camp, then was moved to Elm Street Correctional Facility in Dubuque, Iowa.
The award was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations.