Slain Ohio nun is remembered for her missionary work in Brazil

READING, Ohio (AP) -- An Ohio nun who spent the last 23 years of her life in Brazil helping to protect the rain forest and the people who lived there was remembered Saturday as a "contemporary martyr."
More than 600 people packed into a chapel at Mount Notre Dame High School for a memorial Mass in honor of Sister Dorothy Stang, who was originally from the Dayton area. Another 200 people overflowed into adjoining rooms and watched the ceremony on televisions.
Sister Dorothy, 73, a naturalized Brazilian, protected the rain forest and peasants from loggers and ranchers in the area of Anapu, a Brazilian town of 7,000 on the Amazon's southern edge.
She was working at a settlement 30 miles from Anapu when she was shot Feb. 12. Brazilian authorities have charged four men in Stang's death.
Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk said Sister Dorothy was "a contemporary martyr."
"The martyr is a witness -- a witness to what God has in mind for his human creatures," he said.
Sister Dorothy, who is buried in Brazil, was a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the order that operates Mount Notre Dame High in suburban Cincinnati. Sister Dorothy attended Julienne High School in her native Dayton before spending her senior year at what was then Mount Notre Dame Academy.
"What we're finding out now is the immensity of her work," Sister Joan Krimm said. "From building schools, villages and teaching sustainable farming she did so much good work. Her death is being felt all over the world."