History of the Province
The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur have the charism of proclaiming the goodness of God in the midst of people living in poverty in the most abandoned places.
When the Catholic Church called the Congregations of Religious in the United States to send 10% of its personnel to Latin America, it did so to increase the number of missionaries at the service of the people.
In 1962 Notre Dame de Namur responded to this call by sending five Sisters to the requesting site of a parish in Rosário in the state of Maranhão, Brazil. Maranhão was a state in northeast Brazil, socio-economically classified as poor. The five Sisters were: Gertrude Barron, Therese Drummond, Kathleen Early, Joanne Depweg (Julia) and Marlene DeNardo. Following the advice of national Mission offices, the Sisters first participated in CENFI, a language and acculturation course in Petropolis outside of Rio de Janeiro There they heard the director, Fr. John Vogel and Ivan Illich, his counterpart from CIF in Cuernavaca, counsel the missionaries to take a service role among the people – not building schools or taking over schools but instead being with the people, listening to them, so that together they could discover how to serve them. In reflecting on Julie’s counsel to “teach what the people need for life,” the Sisters found the freedom to walk among the people and respond to their expressed needs.
After completing the language and acculturation course, the Sisters traveled to Rosário.
They taught some classes in the school, worked with youth groups in the parish and community, promoted Bible courses and engaged with community leaders and the community at large in innovative projects.
In 1966, five more Sisters came from the USA: Barbara English, Marie Heinz, Joan Krimm, Patricia MacWade and Dorothy Stang. After the course in CENFI, they traveled to Maranhão. Marie joined the Sisters in Rosário and the other four initiated a community ministry in the municipality of Coroatá. They got to know the people, listened to them and together discovered what to do to strengthen their journey.
In 1968, five more Sisters came from the USA. Three of them: Judith Clemens, Ellen Dabrieo and Nancy Simonds formed a new community to serve the people of São Domingos; the other two, Loreta Jordan and Joan Sprague, joined the newly formed community in São Luis.
Meanwhile, the pastor in Rosário strongly resisted the new spirit of leadership emerging in the community and saw the sisters as instigators of it.
Tensions rose between pastor and people. The Sisters consulted with the Bishop, Dom Edmilson and with Sister Loretta Julia, their Congregational Superior.
Together with community leaders in Rosário, the decision was made to close Rosário in 1969. They agreed to support the other ministries in Maranhão. The Sisters also expressed to Sister Loretta Julia their desire to organize themselves as a mission region. She appointed Sister Marlene DeNardo as the Regional Superior and encouraged the Sisters to create an official government plan to be presented for approval at the second session of the General Chapter of 1969.
This was the era of post-Vatican II and Medellin. The Church had opened its windows and had begun to understand herself as the People of God. Through her preferential option for the poor, she realized that her mission should be a liberating presence in the midst of the poor, and that the people themselves were being called to participate in the church as protagonists, building this new Church together. The history of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Brazil embodies this vision in everything they have done and do.
An essential tool for creating this new Church was the formation of Base Ecclesial Communities (CEBs).
The people of Maranhão are communitarian by nature – they live and work in community.
Consequently, CEBs were a perfect pastoral fit. Sisters and community leaders wove CEBS into the fabric of community life. The people reflected on their reality in the light of the Bible and took action, educating and strengthening themselves in the awareness of their rights, resisting injustices and organizing ways to change and transform life for the better.
In 1970 Mary Alice McCabe, Roberta (Rebeca) Spires and Damiana Chavez arrived in Maranhão. In 1971, four more Sisters arrived in Maranhão: Anne Marie Bolzan, Barbara (Luci) Ciccolini, Constance Clark and Anne Caroline (Ani) Wihbey. In 1972 two more completed the surge: Sisters Bridget O’Connor and Jane Dwyer.
Sister Lea Hughebaert, the Provincial Superior of the North Belgian Province of Notre Dame de Namur visited Brazil in 1970 and met with the Bishop in Sergipe. She saw the need in the area and agreed to send Sisters. In 1971 three Sisters from the North Belgium Province – Gertrudes (Trude) Brandt, Elisabeth Ryckaert and Greet Torfs — arrived in Brazil by boat in the port of Recife. Sisters Therese Drummond and Marie Heinz greeted them along with Joana Vermeulen who was working at CENFI and had traveled up to Recife to welcome the sisters from her native North Belgium. After visiting with the Sisters in Maranhao, the three – Trude, Elisabeth and Greet – moved on to Aquidabã in Sergipe and settled into life there. Through the years, the SNDdeN North Belgian connection with the SNDdeNs in Recife and Maranhão remained strong.
In 1973, Rita Raboin arrived from the USA in Maranhão, followed by Eliska Durovec and Maureen Unger in 1974, and by Maryann Gillespie, Margaret Weadock, Jeanne Gallo and Lauranne Morena in 1976.
During the decade of the ‘70s and thereafter, the ministry base of the Sisters in Brazil expanded to include: new communities in Recife, and in the states of Ceará and Pará.
Maranho also experienced growth. Each case was a response to Church personnel who, paying attention to the sign of the times, asked for help. For example, Dorothy Stang and Rebeca Spires migrated along with Maranhense farmers to the State of Pará in response to the promise of land and a better life. Mary Alice and Jane responded to the invitation from the Diocese of Crateús in Ceará to live among the people and strengthen their struggle for human rights. Coni Clark went to Recife to engage with urban workers, once rural farmers and now urban workers, organizing for their rights.
In the states of Pará, Maranhão and Ceará the Sisters supported the people as they struggled to claim their rights. When the Church formed the Pastoral of Land, a legal arm organized in 1975 to help defend those rights, the Sisters supported that effort.
In 1977, Sister Rebeca Spires allied herself with the Pastoral for Indigenous People, and thus championed their cause for recognition of their rights to the land and respect for their culture and life. Her engagement with this pastoral took her to the frontier of Oiapoque in the State of Amapá.
Not all those who came to Brazil in 1960-70, were still present in 1980. For various reasons, many returned to the United States, but as was stated by them in the book, Cantar O Canto, a history of the Brazil Province, they all testified: “I learned more from the people of Brazil than I taught them.” Whether the time in Brazil was long or short, they all felt they had received much more than they had given in terms of learning from experience, understanding the Church, understanding God, community and society.
All through these years,
No Brazilian women entered the Congregation of Notre Dame de Namur.
Conscious of their country of origin and its history of domination in Latin American countries, the Sisters in Brazil were reluctant to impose, even without wanting to, a North American culture on Brazilian women.
For anyone who approached Notre Dame de Namur seeking to become a part of the Congregation, the Sisters encouraged them to seek entrance into a Brazilian order such as the Sisters of Jesus Crucified or the Dominicans. Notre Dame lost vocations, but it seemed not to be time for such a venture.
It was Brazilians who finally challenged the American Sisters in Brazil, stating that if life in Notre Dame was good for them, why didn’t they share it with others; and that they needed to trust that Brazilian women could defend themselves faced with the North American culture and that North American Sisters could be sensitive to the Brazilian women seeking to be part of Notre Dame de Namur.
Consequently, Sisters in Brazil began to think seriously about Brazilian vocations. They considered groups of women who might be interested in the SNDdeNs, groups in the places where the Sisters had active ministries. Rita Alves in the Transamazon region, initiated an experience of women affiliated with Notre Dame de Namur, but after some time, terminated it. Later, three women, Antônia de Maria, Valdira and Teresinha began an experience. Valdira persevered to the Novitiate but all three realized that religious life was not for them and they terminated the experience.
In 1992, Raminha — Severina Ramos do Nascimento – entered the Congregation.
She hailed from Recife, a big city with community roots. She heard about Coni and Antonia de Maria who was living with Coni.
Raminha completed her preparation in Notre Dame de Namur and made first vows in the parish of her family in Jaboatão, close to Recife. She made her final vows in Belem, at an Assembly of Notre Dame de Namur, and celebrated her Silver Jubilee in 2022. She was active in the pastoral wherever she lived, in Pernambuco, Paraíba, Ceará, Maranhão and Para. In her latter years her diminished health limited what she could do, but she was always a welcoming presence in the community. Raminha died in Recife in 2023.
In the decade of 1900 a 2000, various women who worked with the Sisters in Pernambuco, Paraíba, Maranhão and Pará, explored religious life in Notre Dame de Namur. When they left the community, they left their mark on both the community and the pastoral. People remember them and ask about them. Many continue active in their parishes and communities. They simply discovered in their time with the Sisters that they did not share the charism of Notre Dame de Namur. They remain friends, nonetheless, to mention a few: Rita Alves, Maria Arruda, Isabel and Maria Vagner of Transamazônica, Pará; Valdira of Marajo, Pará; Terezinha of Maranhão (via CIMI); Antônia Maria of Ceará; Graça, Ivanilda and Amarilis of Paraíba; Tecla, Wanessa, Lucyane (Lu), Socorro and Rosinha of Belém; Josineide, Wrenilda and Raminha of Pernambuco. Carla, of Rio de Janeiro, was a member of another congregation. She met our sisters in São Luis and was captivated by their spirit of mission and community and the charism of Notre Dame. She asked to transfer and entered Notre Dame de Namur.
In August of 2000, Eliska and Mary were on mission in Itaituba, Pará, working in the Pastoral of the Child and with Community Therapy.
They traveled a lot to other parishes outside of Itaituba. On their way home, in Trairão, they had a tragic accident culminating in the death of Eliska and serious injuries with Mary. It was a tremendous loss for the Brazil Province. A year later Mary returned to the United States. What is clear is that they planted good seeds. The women in Itaituba continue the work Eliska and Mary initiated.
In February of 2005, Dorothy Stang was murdered in the Sustainable Development Project (PDS) she organized, known as Esperança or Hope in the municipality of Anapú, Pará. It was the culmination of the persecution that the people and Dorothy had been suffering from farmers with false titles to large parcels of land, loggers from lumber companies and lawless henchmen. It was the result of the struggle for sustainable development of the forest land and protection of the Amazon forest. Her assassination deeply shook the Sisters and the people of the communities of Anapú and the surrounding region. Much has been written about this event. It was a violence that changed the history of Anapú. An elderly farmer shouted on the day of Dorothy’s burial. “She is not being buried, but planted, and she will bear much fruit.”
Throughout the history of Notre Dame de Namur in Brazil, the Sisters have been involved in the struggles of the people: in the Base Ecclesial Communities (CEBs); in biblical studies or popular readings of the Bible developed by the Ecumenical Center for Biblical Studies (CEBI); in pastoral care with the Church, such as catechesis, liturgy and youth; in the struggles for land with organized groups and with the Pastoral of Land (CPT) and in Unions; in the struggles for the life and dignity of women, with women’s groups; in the Pastoral of the Child; in the defense of Indigenous Peoples in their struggles for life, culture and land; and for the defense of Nature in every possible way. All the Sisters, whatever their engagement in pastoral ministries or in popular movements, develop a work of popular education with the people they serve, with everyone participating in teaching and learning the walk of Life.
Sister Dorothy
Came to the Nazaré Center in 1982
The late year, 2022, marks 40 years of the presence of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in the area we know today as Anapu.
He currently has three sisters from Notre Dame de Namur: Maria Tecla da Silva Gaia, Jane Dwyer and Kátia Webster. They engage in the mission of proclaiming the goodness of God among the impoverished people in the most abandoned places in various forms in this region of Anapu. In all its activities, it has a Popular Education base, where they learn from the people before teaching. They continue the process of listening, walking together, discovering together how to act to help the people along their liberation process.
Tecla develops work in the pastoral care of catechesis and liturgy, prepares altar servers to serve in the celebrations of the parish communities, supports the Ministers of the Eucharist, accompanies youth in their multiple ways of organizing, supports women who work with natural medicine and accompanies the urban communities Nossa Senhora de Fátima, Santa Isabel and Nossa Senhora Aparecida (in the neighborhood where the sisters live).
Jane and Kátia monitor new and pre-settlements.
They are part of the Pastoral Land Commission that accompanies the people in their struggles to settle on the land, fighting for the legal right to stay on the land, for the education of their sons and daughters and for the defense of the environment. With two agricultural technicians educated in an agricultural program supported by Dorothy Stang, they develop community nursery work and provide agricultural assistance to farmers in these new settlements, critical for families to stay on the land. They also carry out work with biblical studies in the communities of several parishes in the Diocese of Xingu. This is part of the work with CEBI, the Ecumenical Center for Biblical Studies that develops a popular reading of the Bible. They live in a Base Ecclesial Community (CEBs), and work together with the people of the CEBs in the large region where the Transamazônica and Santarém Cuiabá Highways pass.
Forest Pilgrimage
In 2006, a year after Dorothy's murder, people felt the need to do something to remember Dorothy, to affirm that the fight continues, that she did not die in vain, and that we are not afraid of the forces that killed Dorothy. The idea of holding a Pilgrimage came up, a religious act with the flavor of protest. Since this year, there has been the Pilgrimage of the Forest, taking the two years of the pandemic aside, tracing the path that Dorothy took going to PDS Esperança. The Pilgrimage leaves São Rafael where Dorothy is planted and goes to the PDS, where she fell. There are 3 days of walking, two nights in communities along the road, several meals at agreed points along the road with the arrival at the cross that marks the place of the murder. At night, the pilgrims have a program in the PDS shed dreamed of by Dorothy but built after she was killed. On Sunday there is a great Eucharistic celebration in the forest next to the cross that marks the place where she was killed.
This event is increasingly a youth event. They help with preparation and execution. Most participants are young now. Many of them had not been born when Dorothy was killed, but the mystique of the martyr who fought for the forest, for the lives of the people is alive and young people want to know and live this mystique. They embrace the commitment to be the sprout that came from the seed that was planted in 2005.
Continuing the work of Sister Dorothy, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, together with some professional and popular technicians that she helped prepare, develop work in a Central Nursery, São Rafael and several community nurseries mainly in the settlements. Together with the people of the oldest and new settlements, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur work with the reforestation of the Amazon.
The community of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur
Has been in Breves, Ilha do Marajó (Pará), since 2005, and is part of the Prelacy of Marajó
Before living in Breves, from 2002 onwards, the sisters came to Marajó and the nearby islands to lead the Pastoral da Criança.
The first house was built in the Jardim Tropical neighborhood – which is on the outskirts of the city. After 15 years living in this place, the sisters moved to the other side of the city and currently live in the neighborhood called Nova Breves.
The house in Jardim Tropical was transformed into a social center, and is called “Tapiri Sorriso de Santa Júlia”. In this place, several activities are carried out:
- Community library: space where children, teenagers and young people can read, do research and play with games and toys;
- Community workshop: neighborhood women learn to sew on sewing machines, with the help of a teacher;
- Adult literacy: adults and elderly people learn to read and write, taught by a sister and an educator;
- Musical education: children, teenagers and young people learn to play instruments - guitar and keyboard - each with a teacher;
- Self-care workshop: a professional midwife and masseuse performs and teaches massage techniques to women in the neighborhood;
- Capoeira: a professional teaches children and teenagers to practice this type of cultural expression of African origin.
In addition to these activities, Tapiri Sorriso de Santa Júlia opens its doors to host pastoral and social movement meetings, conversation circles and celebrations.
Among the ministries developed by the sisters are two social commissions:
the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) and the Justice and Peace Commission (CJP)
The Pastoral Land Commission works with traditional peoples and communities that find themselves in a situation of agrarian conflict – normally threatened by farmers or large companies that use violence to expel them from their lands and exploit nature; through training and legal advice, it supports the people who organize themselves in defense of their territories and the assets of Creation.
The Justice and Peace Commission works directly with people and groups whose rights are violated; offers training on public policies, receives and forwards reports of human rights violations.
The sisters of Notre Dame participate in Base Ecclesiastical Communities on the outskirts of Breves, celebrating together with the people, and provide assistance to meetings of riverside communities, which spread throughout the interior of the rivers. Likewise, they support youth ministry and other pastorals and social movements in meetings and events that provide spaces for critical reflection and commitment to the most excluded and impoverished in Marajó.
Over the years, many Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Brazil spent time in Oiapoque to provide specific service to these people. As always in the history of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, they state that they learned much more from the original peoples than they taught. It is with indigenous peoples that we have the chance to learn to live in harmony with nature and thus save the planet.
In 2021, a community of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur started a new community in Oiapoque, living alongside the people of the city, as well as the people of the villages.
In Oiapoque, Sisters Maria de Jesus Borges Costa, Socorro Oliveira da Silva, and Josineide Maria da Silva dedicate themselves to various pastorals such as: Youth, Children's Pastoral, Health Pastoral, Elderly Pastoral, Altar Servers, Baptism, Bible, Catechesis , Celebration of the Word, Ministers of the Eucharist, Soup (distribution of soup to families), and home visits to the sick with communion.
The Sisters who are committed to these pastoral activities have only been in this city for three years. They are at the beginning of the process of adaptation, knowledge and learning. Sister Joseneide declares: We still have a long way to go. Guided by the Word, we are called and seek to live the charisma, announcing the goodness of God, inserted among the people. “Oh! How Good is the Good God”!
Indigenous Pastoral
Youth Ministry
Children's Ministry
Social Pastoral - Solidarity Soup
Celebration of the Word