BATH — New York Cardinal John O’Connor shrugged off a protest by peace activists outside Bath Iron Works with a joke as he spoke at the launching of an Aegis destroyer.

One demonstrator was escorted from the viewing stand after she interrupted O’Connor’s address, but no major disruption occurred.

O’Connor attended the ceremony Saturday as a friend of the family of the late Rev. John F. “Jake” Laboon for whom the destroyer is named.

“I could not in conscience be here today if I believed that this ship would ever be engaged to initiate aggression against any nation or peoples,” O’Connor said.

“I am here because of my conviction that this ship will be engaged only to defend the innocent against unjust aggression, to deter war, to maintain peace with justice,” he said.

Outside the shipyard, Suzanne Hedrick of Augusta spoke for the close to two dozen protesters, saying, “we’re opposed to the church giving its blessings to war machines.”

“That is heartbreaking to those of us who have worked for years to make people realize that through peace we can heal this world,” she said.

The woman who approached O’Connor reading from a Bible identified herself as Susan Silverio of Lincolnville. She said she was reading from a passage in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

The launching of BIW’s fifth Aegis destroyer brought together surviving siblings of Laboon, a Jesuit priest who served in World War II and Vietnam during a 21-year Navy career as chaplain, senior chaplain and fleet chaplain.

O’Connor, a longtime friend and chaplain in the Marines and the Navy for 27 years, presided at Laboon’s funeral in 1988.

The New York prelate told a shipyard audience of about 2,000 people that the Navy today stands “accused of discrimination in trying to maintain certain traditional values.”

Without explicitly mentioning the national debate over gays in the military, O’Connor said, “The Navy will have my support and I hope it will have the support of the Congress of the United States in maintaining those same traditional values.”

Other dignitaries included Adm. Frank B. Kelso, acting secretary of the Navy and chief of naval operations, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell and 1st District Rep. Tom Andrews.

O’Connor, indirectly acknowledging controversies that have routinely marked his tenure as the eighth Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, resumed his remarks after Silverio’s departure by saying, “You may wonder what the cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church is doing in a classy place like this. I’ve really come here because I’m running out of friendly audiences.”

BIW designed and built the first Aegis destroyer, the USS Arleigh Burke, which was launched in 1989 and delivered to the Navy in 1991.

Aegis destroyers are state-of-the-art warships with weapons systems designed to track hundreds of aircraft and missiles simultaneously. Officials say they were the first ships in the world designed to survive chemical or biological attacks.