{"id":3738,"date":"2006-12-30T22:57:15","date_gmt":"2006-12-30T22:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/top-of-the-list.html"},"modified":"2006-12-30T22:57:15","modified_gmt":"2006-12-30T22:57:15","slug":"top-of-the-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/top-of-the-list.html","title":{"rendered":"Top of the list"},"content":{"rendered":"

An activist livs in hope and trust:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

EARLY last year, a dubious distinction attached itself to Tarc\u00edsio Feitosa da Silva, director of the Roman Catholic Church<\/span><\/a>\u2019s Pastoral Land Commission here in one of the most conflict-ridden regions of the Amazon. After the American nun Dorothy Stang was shot to death on a jungle road, he replaced her at the top of the death list that loggers, ranchers, miners and land speculators are known to maintain.<\/p>\n

It is, of course, a form of recognition that Mr. Feitosa, 35, and his family would prefer he not have. But it testifies to the effectiveness of his work on behalf of Indian tribes, peasant settlers and river-dwellers and to preserve what remains of the endangered rain forest here.<\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

Still, Mr. Feitosa said, \u201cIf they want to do it, they are going to do it. You can\u2019t impede them. I have to trust in God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sister Dorothy also trusted in God, and that, in the end, was not enough to protect her. \u201cShe aroused the ire of a lot of people by discovering all those irregularities that were going to damage a lot of big interests,\u201d he acknowledged. Has he also enraged those same interests? \u201cMaybe so,\u201d he replied, \u201cbut they are going to have to leave. The forest must be kept alive for the benefit of all, not just a few speculators.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI go to Mass every Sunday at 6:30 in the afternoon,\u201d he added with a shrug. \u201cIf someone wants to kill me, they already know the route.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An activist livs in hope and trust: EARLY last year, a dubious distinction attached itself to Tarc\u00edsio Feitosa da Silva, director of the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s Pastoral Land Commission here in one of the most conflict-ridden regions of the Amazon. After the American nun Dorothy Stang was shot to death on a jungle road, he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTop of the list - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/top-of-the-list.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top of the list - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An activist livs in hope and trust: EARLY last year, a dubious distinction attached itself to Tarc\u00edsio Feitosa da Silva, director of the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s Pastoral Land Commission here in one of the most conflict-ridden regions of the Amazon. After the American nun Dorothy Stang was shot to death on a jungle road, he…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/top-of-the-list.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-30T22:57:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Top of the list - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/top-of-the-list.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Top of the list - Via Media","og_description":"An activist livs in hope and trust: EARLY last year, a dubious distinction attached itself to Tarc\u00edsio Feitosa da Silva, director of the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s Pastoral Land Commission here in one of the most conflict-ridden regions of the Amazon. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}