Dorothy Stang

Dorothy Mae Stang was an American-born Brazilian Catholic nun and martyr. She was murdered in Anapu, Pará, in the Amazon Basin in 2005. Stang had been outspoken in her efforts on behalf of the poor and the environment and had previously received death threats from loggers and landowners. She began her ministry in Brazil in 1966, in Coroatá, Maranhão. Stang dedicated her life to defending the Brazilian rainforest from depletion by agriculture. She worked as an advocate for the rural poor beginning in the early 1970s, helping peasants make a living by farming small plots and extracting forest products without deforestation. She also sought to protect peasants from criminal gangs working on behalf of ranchers who were after their plots. Dot, as she was called by her family, friends and most locals in Brazil, is often pictured wearing a T-shirt with the Portuguese slogan, "The Death of the Forest is the End of Our Lives". She iterated that she did not want to flee, '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.' On the morning of February 12, 2005, Stang woke up early to walk to a community meeting to speak about the rights for the Amazon. A farmer, Stang, invited to the meeting, was going to be late. He was a couple of minutes behind Stang, but he was able to see her and hid from the two-armed men who followed her. She progressed on and was blocked by the two men, Clodoaldo Carlos Batista and Raifran das Neves Sales, who worked in a livestock company. They asked if she had any weapons, and she claimed that the only weapon would be her Bible. She then read a passage from the Beatitudes, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." She continued a couple of steps but was suddenly stopped when Ciero called her "sister", as she was held at gunpoint. They fired a round into Stang's abdomen. She fell face down on the ground. They fired another round into her back, then fired all four remaining rounds into her head, killing her. She was 73 years old.

The US Attorney's Office, Transnational Crime Unit, in Washington, DC, pursued an indictment of the four people (three in custody, one at large). The key elements of the statute required a) the victim be a US citizen, b) that the murder takes place outside the US, and c) that the murder was carried out to influence, pressure, or coerce a government or civilian group. Stang's murder met all the key elements. In June 2005, two men were charged with conspiracy to murder an American outside the United States in connection with her death.

The Basilica of Saint Bartholomew on the Isle, a memorial to the "New Martyrs" by order of Saint John Paul II, will receive two precious mementos of Sister Dorothy Stang , a nun of the congregation of Our Lady of Namur, killed in 2005 in Anapu, in the Brazilian state of Pará: a handful of earth from the site of the assassination and a shirt worn by the American nun, whose figure was remembered in the recent Synod for the Amazon. Dorothy Stang received the United Nations Human Rights Prize posthumously on December 10, 2008.