{"id":5762,"date":"2006-09-18T10:17:18","date_gmt":"2006-09-18T10:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/sr-leonella.html"},"modified":"2006-09-18T10:17:18","modified_gmt":"2006-09-18T10:17:18","slug":"sr-leonella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/sr-leonella.html","title":{"rendered":"Sr. Leonella"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much about the murder of this religious sister, member of the Consolation Missionaries, shot in the back on the steps of the hospital in which she served the poor of Somalia.<\/a><\/p>\n

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An elderly nun shot four times at the Somali hospital where she worked forgave her killers as she lay dying, colleagues said Monday in the wake of a murder that has focused attention on Islamic radicalism in the Horn of Africa country. <\/p>\n

Sister Leonella, 65, muttered the words ‘I forgive, I forgive’ in Italian after being targeted by gunmen in an apparent execution-style killing, father Maloba Wesonga told The Associated Press at the nun’s memorial mass in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday. <\/p>\n

Her murder \u2014 the latest slaying of a foreigner in Somalia \u2014 was not a random attack and could have been sparked by remarks by Pope Benedict XVI about Muslims that have sparked angry reaction from Muslims around the world, added Willy Huber, regional head of the Austrian-funded hospital where Sister Leonella worked. <\/p>\n

The killing has once again turned the spotlight on the lawless Horn of Africa nation where a powerful, radical Islamic group, accused of having ties to al-Qaida, have all but wrested control of the country from the weak and factional Somali government. \\<\/p>\n

Sister Leonella, whose birth name was Rosa Sgorbati, had lived and worked in Kenya and Somalia for 38 years, her family said. No on has claimed responsibility for her killing. <\/p>\n

She was shot as she left the Austrian-run S.O.S. hospital Sunday. Her bodyguard also was slain. The two had been walking the 10 meters (30 feet) from the Mogadishu hospital to the sister’s home, where three other nuns were waiting to have lunch with her. <\/p>\n

"She had no chance," Huber added. "It was like an execution." <\/p>\n

Sister Leonella  was aware of the dangers in Somalia and used to joke that there was a bullet with her name engraved on it. "But this never deterred her or discouraged her," Father Wesonga, who is secretary of the archdiocese of Nairobi, told the AP at the memorial service.  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course she was targeted – but do remember that the description of Somalia as "lawless" is not an abstract notion, and the latest news a car bomb exploded today, killing 8, in an attack that is seen as an attempt to asassinate the country’s transitional president.<\/a> <\/p>\n

And remember this, mainstream media reporting on this: note that Sister remarked on the threats to her life before the Pope said anything about Emperor Manuel II. What does this tell us? Perhaps that, once again we might want to check our assertions that it was the Pope who "fomented" discord. As in – Christians in Muslim-dominated countries know the real nature of the threats. They live in the midst of it. <\/p>\n

As TMatt notes – she already had a bodyguard. The sharp, necessary question, then is:<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Was this elderly Italian nun murdered (a) because gunmen who were too radical for the sharia law regime of Somalia were angered by Western media reports that said Pope Benedict XVI had insulted Islam? Or was her murder (b) merely an ordinary murder of a Catholic missionary in an Islamic country in which government officials have failed, perhaps due to fear of the consequences, to contain gangs of violent Islamist radicals?<\/strong><\/p>\n

So was this a pope-related murder of a nun or merely an ordinary murder of a nun?<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much about the murder of this religious sister, member of the Consolation Missionaries, shot in the back on the steps of the hospital in which she served the poor of Somalia. 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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. 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