But China would not be the final destination for this young woman who had grown up on a farm, one of nine children, in Dayton, Ohio. After teaching in Chicago and Phoenix, God chose to use her loving understanding of farms and farming to plant her in Brazil in 1966. Volunteers for the mission work there, she and four other Sisters worked with human rights activists to protect the land rights of small farmers and the future of their families - and thus became a target of Big Business.
Showing her dedication to the people of Brazil, Sister Dorothy became a citizen of Brazil as well as the United States. She worked with the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization of the Catholic Church (organized by the Brazilian Catholic Bishops) that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants, and defends land reforms in Brazil.
Sister Dorothy loved working with the poor; she had worked with poor children in the desert of Arizona. Now she worked for years in Anapu, a town in the state of Para, on the edge of the rain forest in the Amazon Basin, advocating unceasingly not only for poor farmers but to keep the environment from being plundered and destroyed. She helped both the farmers and the rain forest by teaching the farmers sustainable farming techniques. However, unlike Arizona, these farmers were losing their lives, their homes, their lands, their animals. Brazil was a whole new, dangerous mission field. Illegal loggers and corrupt ranchers were threatening, intimidating, attacking, and stealing land from the poor farmers, land set aside for the landless poor by the government, and Big Business was getting away with it by buying off the police, the government and the military.
At first, Sister Dorothy thought she would be safe because she was a religious sister. But she soon discovered how naive that attitude was. The Amazon's resources were too great a prize for the powerful and greedy to ignore.
The Order's website tells us,
"Over the years, the work became progressively more dangerous for the Sisters in Brazil and for the farmers and their families. As the world discovered the vast possibilities offered by the rich natural resources of the Amazon rain forest, people with more limited and self-centered goals began to plan ways to capitalize upon them. Gradually, loggers, ranchers, land speculators, and agribusiness became the dominant forces in the region, victimizing the poorer farmers and destroying the rain forest.
"The Amazon rain forest is one of the largest remaining virgin forests on earth. Its original trees and vegetation comprise 40% of all the tropical rainforests in the world. The forest hosts 50% of the world's plant species and is home to 20 million people. In addition, 20% of the earth's fresh water reserve runs through the Amazon River basin.
"Sister Dorothy understood that the rain forest, also called the earth's lungs, plays a critical role in the exchange of gases between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Her frustration grew as she witnessed the destruction of this natural resource so vital to her people's and the planet's future. She saw the forest and the people plundered for financial gain by illegal logging operations, land speculators, and cattle ranchers. She witnessed political leaders allowing the destruction to continue."
Sr. Dorothy worked for over four decades in Brazil.
"Feisty and energetic and loving, one of the great saints. Surely she'll be canonized one day. To that end she remained faithful to the poor, to the ruined Amazon, and so, to the Gospel and the God of justice and compassion. Beautiful stories come down to us. How she fed the hungry, built community, lived in destitution. How she confronted illegal loggers and corrupt ranchers, the class who stole land from the poor, kept them in misery, and bought off the police, the military and the government. Death threats rained down on Dorothy for years, along with insults and hate mail. Ranchers took aim at the community center for women that she had founded and riddled it with bullets. On one occasion the police arrested her for passing out "subversive" material. It was the United Nations's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Another time, she escaped by a hairs-breadth an attempt on her life."
"I don't want to flee," she said, when asked if she was concerned about her life, " nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while respecting the environment."
"She attended the historic 1992 first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. A few weeks later, she wrote her family, "Tell all that we must make great efforts to save our planet. Mother Earth is not able to provide anymore. Her water and air are poisoned and her soil is dying of exaggerated use of chemicals, all in the name of profit. Pray for all of us and for a world where all can live -- plants, animals and humans -- in peace and harmony." (John Dear)
Sister Dorothy knew there was a price on her head. She knew that the Mayor of the neighboring town had said "We have to get rid of that woman or we won't have any peace." Undoubtedly he was tired of her repeatedly barging into government offices to lodge official complaints - sometimes bedding down in offices overnight to snare recalcitrant officials - because she'd done her homework, she knew the laws. Rather than slowing her down, she burned at an even more intense level of advocacy for justice for her people. And - she continued to pray peacefully for her persecutors.
In 2004 although she knew she was putting her life even more at risk, the short, round-and-sweet-faced, silver-haired Sr. Dorothy went to Brasilia to give hard evidence before a congressional committee of inquiry into deforestation. Without compromise, she named logging companies who were invading state areas.
"Felicio, don’t ever give up, do you hear me? You have to keep up the fight. You musn’t abandon our people, do you understand? You must keep on fighting because God is with you," she pleaded on the telephone to a young federal prosecutor, a supporter of the farmers, from Belem, on the morning of February 12, 2005 ( as quoted in "The Greatest Gift—The Courageous Life and Martyrdom of Sr. Dorothy Stang," by Binka Le Breton.)
That day, February 12, 2005, was the last day of her life on earth. Her Order tells us the end of her story, and the new beginning which developed from it:
"Sr. Dorothy Stang chose to live in extreme poverty in order to help others living in poverty. She had a passion for people of all cultures, for social justice, peacemaking, fairness, and respect for the environment. She possessed few material things: a mix-match of colorful clothing, spartan furnishings and her Bible, which she carried everywhere and sometimes called it her “weapon.”
"On a rain-soaked Saturday in February 2005, she carried that Bible while making her way along a muddy Amazon jungle road. She was headed to Boa Esperança, a village near Anapu, where she lived in the northern Brazil state of Para. The area lies on the eastern edge of the Amazon, a region known for its wealth of natural resources and the violence that boils over from land disputes.
Waiting for Sr. Dorothy that morning was a group of peasant farmers whose homes had been burned down to the ground on the land which the federal government had granted to these farmers. In the entire state of Para and in a place like Boa Esperança, legal title to land does not always end disputes. In Para, logging firms and wealthy ranchers find assistance from local politicians and police in procuring and commandeering property from indigenous peoples and small farmers. While Sr. Dorothy walked on toward Boa Esperança, she heard taunts from men who had stopped alongside her. The rain poured as she stopped and opened her Bible. She read to the men. They listened to two verses, stepped back and aimed their guns. Sr. Dorothy raised her Bible toward them and six shots were fired at point blank range. She fell to the ground, martyred.
"In the days preceding her murder on February 12, 2005, Sr. Dorothy was attempting to halt illegal logging where land sharks had interests but no legal rights. Authorities believe the murder was arranged by a local rancher for $19,300 (U.S.). Many believe that a consortium of loggers and ranchers had contributed to the bounty on Sr. Dorothy’s head in an effort to silence her. Ironically, their attempt at silence resulted in an opposite effect: an outraged world, well informed about the murder through persistent global media reports, sent Sr. Dorothy’s voice soaring to new heights. And a proclamation came quickly from Brazil’s President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva, that the land in question, over 22,000 acres, would be reserved for sustainable development by the poor farmers whose cause Sr. Dorothy had championed."
Edwina Gateley ponders
"Dorothy,
the little nun,
was a problem.
She was in the way,
as she stood
like a great, protective mother
shielding her family,
the people and the trees
of the Amazon,
from corporate power and greed.
She knew of the threats.
She could have fled
to the safety of Ohio
and the comfort of her own people
back in the States.
But Dorothy was a lover
who had been seized
by a passionate God
to follow a life
of commitment and service
in a foreign land.
This God, this love,
the purpose,
was to Dorothy
bigger than all fear
and all intimidation....
The shots turned her white hair
red, like the forest soil
she loved so much,
and her blood fed
and moistened the earth....
This, indeed,
is what greatness is all about -
the faithful and dogged pursuit of
justice and goodness,
no matter what the sacrifice.
No matter what the cost.
May your martyrdom, Dorothy,
give us courage
to stand upright,
calling for justice and the protection of the earth....."