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Martyr of the Amazon
The murder in 2005 of an American nun, Sister Dorothy Stang, focused the world's attention on the plight of poor farmers in the Brazilian Amazon and their struggles against rapacious developers. Sister Dorothy had worked in Brazil for forty years. From a conventional nun in the pre-Vatican II era, she had developed a keen social conscience and, increasingly, a deep, mystical commitment to the integrity of Creation. These ideals combined in her advocacy for the rights of the poor and her defense of the imperiled rain forest. They also earned her the enmity of land-grabbing ranchers who repeatedly threatened her. "All I ask," she wrote, "is God's grace to help me keep on this journey, fighting for the people to have a more egalitarian life and that we learn to respect Gods creation."
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 5, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 23, 2019
This is the story of an American woman, Dorothy Stang, from Ohio, who when she was a teenager decided to enter a mission – The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur - to become a sister (or nun, I am not sure of the difference, if any).
In the early 1960’s (this book can be vague on dates) she went to Arizona to work with poor migrant labourers where she taught English to their children and of course religion. She also became very aware of the exploitation of these migrant workers; for instance, their children were being made to work in the fields instead of going to school. Her sense of justice was evolving and would continue after she applied in her mid-thirties to a mission in Brazil where she spent the rest of her life.
This is a sad story of Sister Dorothy’s struggle to give empowerment to the downtrodden in Brazil in the Amazon basin. They were continually being beaten and exploited as a source of cheap labour by the rich cattle ranchers and loggers. Both groups were tearing down the vast Amazon forest with little regard to environmental consequences.
Sister Dorothy helped the people to form groups to petition the government for justice. For this many were intimidated and some killed. Sister Dorothy herself was threatened on many occasions and labelled as an agitator and communist. The rich loggers and cattle ranchers had connections with the government and were often able to circumvent legalities – and do whatever they wanted in the vast Amazon with little regard for laws.
Sister Dorothy was also an environmental activist and fought the ongoing deforestation in the Amazon. She lived with the poor and did not accumulate wealth. She helped set up schools and medical stations. Also, groups were organized to interpret Brazils many laws that protected the rights of settlers on the land from being abused by the rich.
Sister Dorothy had felt uneasy many times over the years and at the age of 73 (in 2005) she was shot and killed by the hired thugs of cattle ranchers. Even during her funeral other activists were assassinated.
Page 152 (my book)
Those who thought that Sister Dorothy would be silenced by her murder were badly mistaken. The story of a seventy-three-year-old American nun who was killed while trying to bring justice to the poor in the Amazon and who was championing sustainable farming there to save the forest from destruction caught the imagination of the press. Dorothy’s story touched a nerve, jolting the complacent and exposing the ignorance of most people about the violence and destruction that was ongoing in the Amazon.
Here is a woman who left the secure confines of her home in America to dedicate her life for forty years to helping the poor find justice. She did on occasion return to her family in Ohio – and when they visited her in Brazil they were overcome by the humbleness of her lifestyle and her total involvement in the community.
In the early 1960’s (this book can be vague on dates) she went to Arizona to work with poor migrant labourers where she taught English to their children and of course religion. She also became very aware of the exploitation of these migrant workers; for instance, their children were being made to work in the fields instead of going to school. Her sense of justice was evolving and would continue after she applied in her mid-thirties to a mission in Brazil where she spent the rest of her life.
This is a sad story of Sister Dorothy’s struggle to give empowerment to the downtrodden in Brazil in the Amazon basin. They were continually being beaten and exploited as a source of cheap labour by the rich cattle ranchers and loggers. Both groups were tearing down the vast Amazon forest with little regard to environmental consequences.
Sister Dorothy helped the people to form groups to petition the government for justice. For this many were intimidated and some killed. Sister Dorothy herself was threatened on many occasions and labelled as an agitator and communist. The rich loggers and cattle ranchers had connections with the government and were often able to circumvent legalities – and do whatever they wanted in the vast Amazon with little regard for laws.
Sister Dorothy was also an environmental activist and fought the ongoing deforestation in the Amazon. She lived with the poor and did not accumulate wealth. She helped set up schools and medical stations. Also, groups were organized to interpret Brazils many laws that protected the rights of settlers on the land from being abused by the rich.
Sister Dorothy had felt uneasy many times over the years and at the age of 73 (in 2005) she was shot and killed by the hired thugs of cattle ranchers. Even during her funeral other activists were assassinated.
Page 152 (my book)
Those who thought that Sister Dorothy would be silenced by her murder were badly mistaken. The story of a seventy-three-year-old American nun who was killed while trying to bring justice to the poor in the Amazon and who was championing sustainable farming there to save the forest from destruction caught the imagination of the press. Dorothy’s story touched a nerve, jolting the complacent and exposing the ignorance of most people about the violence and destruction that was ongoing in the Amazon.
Here is a woman who left the secure confines of her home in America to dedicate her life for forty years to helping the poor find justice. She did on occasion return to her family in Ohio – and when they visited her in Brazil they were overcome by the humbleness of her lifestyle and her total involvement in the community.
May 22, 2017
What an amazing story - what an amazing and beautiful life. It's almost 12 years to the day that Sister Dorothy Stang was gunned down in cold blood on a rainy Brazilian jungle footpath. Shot for her unflagging defense of the poor and underprivileged and the sanctity of the forest environment, Sister Dorothy's forty years of service in rural Brazil ended February 12, 2005. Who would accept blood money for murdering a 73-year-old American nun, and why would anyone want her forever silenced?
Author Roseanne Murphy helps us understand the political climate Sister Dorothy operated under in the rural state of Para, a place where an astonishing number of unpunished murders have been committed during two decades of battles over land rights and conservation. Again and again she witnessed poor farmers and their families being intimidated, ejected, even killed by hired thugs on the payroll of wealthy ranchers whose greed for more land and greater profits truly knows no bounds.
With the local police, judges and politicians also in their pockets, the ranchers had carte blanche for many years in this remote part of the country; stolen lands were rarely returned and the vast majority of the killings went not just unprosecuted but in most cases were never even investigated. Deep in the middle of this conflict, siding squarely with the oppressed and powerless, Sister Dorothy offered her "people" something their own society had never afforded them: dignity, a sense of their rights, a voice of their own.
By her example and her energy, her heart and her courage, she lifted them up even as the forces arrayed against them tried harder and harder to keep them down. For this affront she earned the hatred of the wealthy landowners, had her life threatened on many occasions and eventually topped a locally circulated "death" list with bounties attached. And yet she carried on. Even - especially - when she was afraid, or the rare times when she became tired and discouraged at the seeming hopelessness of her uphill battle against overwhelming force.
If her story sounds familiar, it's because we've heard it before - in the lives of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa and the countless saints and martyrs of Christianity and other faiths through the ages. Like these, Sister Dorothy used her life to fight injustice where she saw it, facing a government that was at best indifferent and at worst a hostile enemy. Despite multiple trips to the capital, Brasilia, and endless meetings with glad-handing officials, legal papers proved toothless, land agreements were not enforced and only she and her grassroots army were left to defend the people. It took international outrage at her death for the government to at last send in troops to protect the farmers and the land set aside for national parks and preserves. Even then, eighteen more murders were committed in the year after Dorothy's. Her killers and their backers were eventually handed long prison terms but it seems likely Sister Dorothy would not be satisfied that hundreds of other victims have had no such closure.
A martyr of the church, a saint for the environment and the poor, Sister Dorothy Stang's story is a modern-day lesson for us all about the power of one life.
Author Roseanne Murphy helps us understand the political climate Sister Dorothy operated under in the rural state of Para, a place where an astonishing number of unpunished murders have been committed during two decades of battles over land rights and conservation. Again and again she witnessed poor farmers and their families being intimidated, ejected, even killed by hired thugs on the payroll of wealthy ranchers whose greed for more land and greater profits truly knows no bounds.
With the local police, judges and politicians also in their pockets, the ranchers had carte blanche for many years in this remote part of the country; stolen lands were rarely returned and the vast majority of the killings went not just unprosecuted but in most cases were never even investigated. Deep in the middle of this conflict, siding squarely with the oppressed and powerless, Sister Dorothy offered her "people" something their own society had never afforded them: dignity, a sense of their rights, a voice of their own.
By her example and her energy, her heart and her courage, she lifted them up even as the forces arrayed against them tried harder and harder to keep them down. For this affront she earned the hatred of the wealthy landowners, had her life threatened on many occasions and eventually topped a locally circulated "death" list with bounties attached. And yet she carried on. Even - especially - when she was afraid, or the rare times when she became tired and discouraged at the seeming hopelessness of her uphill battle against overwhelming force.
If her story sounds familiar, it's because we've heard it before - in the lives of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa and the countless saints and martyrs of Christianity and other faiths through the ages. Like these, Sister Dorothy used her life to fight injustice where she saw it, facing a government that was at best indifferent and at worst a hostile enemy. Despite multiple trips to the capital, Brasilia, and endless meetings with glad-handing officials, legal papers proved toothless, land agreements were not enforced and only she and her grassroots army were left to defend the people. It took international outrage at her death for the government to at last send in troops to protect the farmers and the land set aside for national parks and preserves. Even then, eighteen more murders were committed in the year after Dorothy's. Her killers and their backers were eventually handed long prison terms but it seems likely Sister Dorothy would not be satisfied that hundreds of other victims have had no such closure.
A martyr of the church, a saint for the environment and the poor, Sister Dorothy Stang's story is a modern-day lesson for us all about the power of one life.
July 3, 2024
Sister Dorothy is a nun from Ohio who started out in Arizona and then went on to Brazil and spent decades fighting for the tiny communities of farmers who were being burnt out by the big rich ranchers. She built many community schools and started many community faith groups. She fell in love with the Amazon rainforest and was horrified to see the slash and burning of it by the rich to raise cattle. She earned the respect and love of her communities by helping them. She had a price on her head and when she was murdered, the ranch thought no one would care since the government never enforced any of the laws. Her death was world news and with the world watching the Brazilian government did something.
This is a very compelling story but I don't think it fleshed Dorothy out for me.... there is more to her story and I think this glossed over her life and gave the basic facts.
This is a very compelling story but I don't think it fleshed Dorothy out for me.... there is more to her story and I think this glossed over her life and gave the basic facts.
April 23, 2025
I was fascinated by this story. I only had a vague notion of what has been happening in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, but this book surely opened my eyes. God bless Sr. Dorothy Stang for all her efforts. She gave her life in defense of the poor who are being horribly mistreated. I only hope her death proves to make a difference. I'm guessing she'll be on the road to sainthood in the near future.
December 1, 2021
A very painful exposure of the total corruption of the Brazilian government at every leval,
leading to the murder of a beautiful nun who wanted to help the indigenous peope=le.
leading to the murder of a beautiful nun who wanted to help the indigenous peope=le.
August 29, 2020
This book is the story of an American woman from Ohio who becomes a nun and works with farmworkers in Arizona in the 60s and from the 1970s through 2005 with poor farmers in interior Brazil. Sr. Dorothy built schools and clinics and missions but mostly she advocated on behalf of those without a voice in Brazil, and in 2005 at age 72 she was murdered by rich and powerful landowners who were threatened by her actions. I found the book interesting, educational and inspiring
Want to read
March 20, 2008I've been following her case for awhile now
July 31, 2012
Youtubes on this are awesome...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews