A Hero's death

Dorothy Stang, a 74-year-old Catholic nun from Dayton, Ohio, spent nearly all of the last 30 years in the Amazon jungle defending the property rights of peasant farmers.

Stang was murdered last Saturday for her efforts.

"Stang was a champion of the poor and their efforts to live and farm in the Amazon through sustainable methods. She dedicated her life to helping peasant farmers organize against powerful local interests, and didn't back down even when told she would be murdered if she continued to speak out. "She was a leader," da Silva says. "She was killed for defending families with no land."" --- The Christian Science Monitor, 2/15/05.

In today's world, the word "hero" is all too often used without considering what it actually means. We call professional athletes "heroes" for winning a game they get paid millions to play. We laud politicians for telling us what we want to hear - and sometimes elevate them to heroic status. To commit such folly is to shame the very idea of heroism... and it shames the true heroes of our time. And it shames Dorothy Stang.

Dorothy Stang was a hero.