Marlene Denardo, director of our Master’s program at ICCS and UCS years ago, alerted me recently to a new honor bestowed on Sister Dorothy Stang. When Sister Dot was a student at ICCS, Marlene and she were delighted to reunite, since Marlene had been part of her religious community of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. She had also spent many years working in Brazil, including during the years of military dictatorship there.
Sister Dorothy will be “the first American woman included in the Vatican memorial for modern martyrs” on January 10, 2025, a month before the 20th anniversary of her martyrdom. She will be formally recognized by the Vatican as a modern-day martyr along with Saint Archbishop Oscar Romero, St. Charles de Foucauld, and Blessed Franz Jagerstatter who was executed for refusing to fight with the Nazis.
The “Sanctuary of the New Martyrs” contains relics of these persons as part of the permanent memorial to contemporary martyrs. Sister Dot’s relic will be a vial containing the blood-soaked soil from the site of her murder.*
Other awards given her posthumously include the UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights. Books, movies, and documentaries have told her story. She is the first martyr in our creation spirituality movement and deserves to be remembered as a leader of environmental rights and rights of the poor.
A young Brazilian Franciscan priest, who met Sister Dot two years before she died, spoke of her this way. I am deeply grateful for the gift that is Dorothy Stang to Brazil. [She] has become a ‘Saint of the People’ in Brazil, especially in the Amazon. Yesterday, we celebrated World Environment Day, and the presence of this dedicated missionary continued to resonate strongly in our programs and activities commemorating this important day. Dorothy and her teachings remain alive in the heart of the Amazon.
He tells of attending a recent ordination where the celebration incorporated many elements from the Amazonian region. A particularly moving moment was during the litany, where the name of sister Dorothy Stang was invoked. Yes, Dorothy was sung in the litany as a saint. And indeed, she is. We the people of the Amazon, have made Dorothy a saint. She is a North American who became a martyr in the Amazon to defend us, and we are profoundly grateful for her sacrifice. Signed, Fr Erlison Campos, OFM.
I am deeply moved to learn of this honor bestowed on one of our ICCS students.
“Ohio’s Dorothy Stang to be the First American Woman included in Vatican Memorial for Modern Martyrs.” The Catholic Telegraph, June 7, 2024
See Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominations Priest, pp. 341-343, 433, 448.
See also Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: The cover of Angel In Our Forest, book written and illustrated by Sr. Janet Mullen. From the website for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.
Queries for Contemplation
What does Sister Dorothy’s life and work and martyrdom signify to you? And to the movement to saving the planet in this time of Climate Change and, alas! denial of Climate Change?
Recommended Reading
Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)
Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
Selected with an Introduction by Charles Burack
To encapsulate the life and work of Matthew Fox would be a daunting task for any save his colleague Dr. Charles Burack, who had the full cooperation of his subject. Fox has devoted 50 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His more than 40 books, translated into 78 languages, are inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and have awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. Essential Writings begins by exploring the influences on Fox’s life and spirituality, then presents selections from all Fox’s major works in 10 sections.
“The critical insights, the creative connections, the centrality of Matthew Fox’s writings and teaching are second to none for the radical renewal of Christianity.” ~~ Richard Rohr, OFM.
4 thoughts on “Sister Dorothy Stang to Be Formally Recognized as a Modern-Day Martyr”
This is the end of yesterday’s quote in the Comment section from Ilia Delio’s “The Not-Yet God” (p.88).
“… To live freely in the whole is to live as a holonomic person, a person conscious of the whole. One does not lose oneself at the highest level of conscious wholeness; rather, one who lives by the life of the whole lives in the fullness of personhood. To be part of the whole is to be uniquely person, for it is the distinct personality of each person radiating divine light in a particular way that makes wholeness possible (our True Heart Self~Eternal Soul – D.M.). A thousand million lights shining around the globe — with the divine light of Love — can turn the darkness of the earth into the brilliance of heaven.”
Sister Dorothy is one of the Divine Lights of Love still shining on our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth with Us…
My sister Spelled also with a capitol S
Is an incredible reflection of the Creator’s goodness. That reflection was shattered almost 20 years ago only to be shining more brightly today
The Sisters of Notre Dame have named their effort to implement Pope
Francis Out Common Home the Dorothy Stang Iniative…,go Dot!!
It is nice that the Vatican has honored and remembered Sister Dorothy, but as a Protestant, I am much more moved by the outpouring of love and gratitude and joy for her life manifested by all who knew her, from the people in the Amazon, to Matthew and others who were privileged to meet and work with her. To me, she is a model of courage, perseverance, and hope, in the midst of the darkest situations. And, most of all, that she radiated joy. I agree that she was a gentle prophet, who spoke always for justice. If sacrifice means making holy, she made holy all of her work. She truly was and is of the Kingdom of Heaven, to me.