#MartyroftheAmazon. On Oct 11 1976 Joao Bosco Burnier, a Jesuit priest in Brazil, was shot by police in a small village in Mato Grosso, where he had gone with his prophetic bishop, Dom Pedro Casaldaliga, to protest the arrest and torture of two peasant women.
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Burnier had spent most of his career in uncongenial assignments before being assigned to Mato Grosso, a lawless frontier carved out of the Amazon, where peasants and Indians were mercilessly exploited by rich cattle barons. There he rediscovered the meaning of his priesthood.
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His job was to defend human dignity and justice and to make it clear that God was not indifferent to the poor. "We must adapt ourselves to the culture of the Indian in order to transmit the gospel, or to discover within the life of the Indians the gospel values."
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As he lay dying in Dom Pedro's, he offered his sufferings for the poor and the Indians. "I've finished my course. Dom Pedro, we've come to the end of the job together."
For those who wonder what the #AmazonSynod is about.
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It would be interesting to see a full list of these martyrs from South America who out their lives on the line for the freedom and dignity of their people. ISTM, a lot of them were Jesuits....
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