Posted on 02/21/2005 10:13:06 PM PST by ambrose
The Denver Post
Murdered nun had mission
Monday, February 21, 2005 - Jefferson County - Sister Dorothy Stang was remembered Sunday as a missionary working with the poor, a martyr for giving her life in the cause of justice and peace, and a woman with the "awesome power" of angels. Stang, 73, of Dayton, Ohio, was slain Feb. 12 by gunmen in the Amazon region of Brazil about 1,300 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, where she worked to organize about 400 rural families.
About 100 people, many from the Catholic missionary society of Maryknoll, paid their respects to the nun at a memorial service at the Light of the World Catholic Church in southern Jefferson County. Stang worked to protect large areas of pristine jungle from ranching and illegal logging. She worked with peasants, teaching them crop rotation, and supported entrepreneurial projects such as producing jelly from mangoes and papayas. Her brother, David Stang of Palmer Lake, said that when the gunmen pulled her from a car, she read to them from a Bible. Then they shot her six times. A picture displayed at the service showed Stang's body lying on what her brother called "a cold, muddy road."
"When they turned her over, she had a smile on her face," Stang said. His sister displayed "awesome power" in her fight for the rights of the poor people of the Amazon, he said. "I could see that," Stang said. "You can find that awesome power within you." The Rev. Thomas Marti of the Maryknoll Mission Promotion House read from a letter Stang wrote last year. "The greed of the invaders, loggers who take out the hardwoods and cattlemen who burn the forest, depletes the already low fertility of the land, causes erosion and temperatures rise and lessens the rainfall," she wrote.
"When the settlers attempt to defend their land, they are accused of violence. Their homes have been burned, and in the recent trouble, a group of hooded gunmen paid by the cattlemen were repelled by the homesteaders, and one was killed." The nun wrote that she was glad that her order, Notre Dame de Namur, hadn't asked her to leave. "This shows we are aware of the needs of the poor. The sisters have said they are glad I am safe. It is not my safety but that of the people which matters." David Stang said that the Brazilian government has set aside 1.8 million acres of the Amazon as a preserve in her memory. One suspect in the murder has surrendered to authorities, who are still searching for two gunmen and a rancher accused of ordering the slaying.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
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Enjoy your cheap Big Macs...
Contrary to some kneejerk opinions I've read elsewhere, this wasn't some "hug the tree" enviro-whackjob. She was fighting against evil people who were trying to steal land that did not belong to them. You know, property rights?
a rancher accused of ordering the slaying. "Off the 73-year-old nun!" Now that is evil. |
If this is indeed an injustice, may the Lord bring the perps in front of my Taurus .454 Casull.
What does that have to do with "cheap Big Macs" and us?
You make is sound like somehow purchasing a Big Mac makes one an accomplice to her murder.
I'm sure there are honest ranchers that follow the law in Brazil. They don't all deserve to be painted by the same brush or driven out of business because others behave badly.
Of course it does--it's not the killer's fault, it's OUR fault because we eat at McDonald's! Because the trees are cut down to make Big Mac wrappers, WE shot this woman--don't you get it?! Just like how you are on the internet, you're paying the power company to be online, thus giving them the ability to produce energy for streetlights...and muggers and rapists SEE by streetlights to do their mugging and rapingz!!!!!
You like my impersonation of a Society Is To Blame Not The Murderer Who Is A Product Of Evil Capitalism-oid?
Nobody should die, but I am sick to death of these revolutionaries posing as nuns and priests.
Society isn't to blame. The individual is to blame. We have free choice.
Agreed.
What a crock.
99.8% of all paper comes from pulp wood. 99% of that pulp is pine, usually loblolly pine. And, you can bet your booties that pine pulp wood does not come from the Amazon.
Get a life.
Next thing up is the black helicopter conspiracy theory...
Um, I was being sarcastic. The multiple ?!?!?!?! and such kinda gives that away.
Next time read carefully before you start with the insults, huh?
P.S. At the botom of my post: "You like my impersonation of a Society Is To Blame Not The Murderer Who Is A Product Of Evil Capitalism-oid?"
The Amazons are clear cut for reasons other than paper products.. big reason is for farming...
Cut from the same cloth as that dumb chick who got bulldozed in the Palestinean village.
I'm afraid so.
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