Help of the Helpless

HELP
OF THE
HELPLESS
The children were
rounded up,forced to
stand on asteep
embankment,and then
shot--withautomatic
weapons until their
small bodies stopped
moving. That is only
one of the reasons why
an American nun in
Brazil has put her own
life on the line in an
effort to help others-
By Andrew Irevkin
T he visitor's Volkswagen
bounces down a steep dirt
road that cuts through a group of
shacks built ofcinder block, card-
board, tin-a shanty town, cling-
ing to a crumbling hillside, that
~ Good Housekeeping/June 1991
Left: Si ster Michael
MaryNolan in her Siio
Paulo office. Bight:
A policeman thrusts
his revolver into a
homeless child's mouth.
seems held together by a maze of
electric lines and clotheslines. Of
the 18 million inhabitants of Sao
Paulo, Brazil, more than a third
live in open-air slum areas like this
one (called, in Brazilian Portu-
guese, (ave/as) or in crowded, in-
fested tenements.
As she parks her car, the visi-
tor's youthful face betrays little
about her purpose. Only her eyes
give her away-piercing blue eyes
that cannot hide the pain they have
seen. She strides-always in a
hurl'y- toward a small building. It
is a church-run community center
where residents can learn to read
and are taught marketable skills.
In the distance, through a
smoggy pall, she can see the shin-
ing skyscrapers of the other Sao
Paulo, the rich industrial heart of
Brazil. It could be the moon, asfar
as the slum dwellers know.
A woman comes runningfrom a
house smaller than a single-car
garage but surrounded by a neat
garden that defies the prevailing
squalor. "Sister Michael, it's
great to see you," she says.
This woman, whose name is Ce-
lita, is one of the many residents
who have benefited from the com-
munity center; last year, she
learned how to read and write
there, and she now teaches macra-
me at the center. She is 75.
Celita is only one of hundreds of
people Sister Michael Mary Nolan
has helped since she left the U.S.
in 1968 to work with Brazil's un-
derclass. Social work is in Sister
Michael's blood: she was raised in
an Alexandria, Va., home devoted
to liberal politics, civil rights, and
labor causes. Her father, John,
worked for the Labor Depart-
ment; her mother, Mary,
executive secretary to Illi-
nois Senator Paul Douglas,
hired the first black in a
Senate office; her brother
Nicholas did union work for
government employees.
continued on page 74
.Far left: Evidence
collected by Sister M ichael
helped convict hired
assassin "CaboBruno";
now escap ed from prison,
he's vowed to kill her.
Near left: Sister M ichael
visits famil ies in a
favela (open -air slum).

74
ELP OF THE HELPLESS
continued
Michael Mary Nolan·s- first inkling of her future came
from a nun who spoke at her high school in 1959. The nun
had set up a mission in Brazil and described the plight of its
poor; these images stayed with the young woman, who
was already thinking seriously of becoming a nun.
Michael Mary Nolan attended St. Mary's College, on
the campus of Notre Dame, where she earned a degree in
business administration, and soon after, she made her
decision. She took her final vows on August 15, 1968.
Thirty days later she was in Sao Paulo.
After chatting with Celita and visiting the community
center, Sister Michael hurries back to her car and is off
toward her law office. Soon she nears a soupy {ake ofred
mud. She floors the accelerator like a seasoned race-car
driver-"the only way to make it across," she says. On
the left, there is a steep embankment. Sister Michael hates
driving past this spot; she is still haunted by the memory of
a crime that was committed there-an event that changed
her mission forever.
The date was November 5, 1980--her 39th birthday.
Sister Michael was running a program of night classes
for slum dwellers. The students were misfits- teenage
boys who spent half their time stealing or hanging out.
That night, several of Sister Michael's young students
were killed by justi~eiros-free-lance gunmen, many of
them policemen during the daytime, paid by shopkeepers
or neighborhood associations to rid the streets of suspect-
ed criminals and the otherwise unwanted. Six children
forced to stand on the bare slope and then shot with
automatic weapons until their small bodies stopped moving.
Sister Michael knew one of the •victims particularly
well-a 14-year-old boy nicknamed "Sujeiro," which
means "dirty." She had worked with him since he was
seven, trying to keep him out of trouble. She was the one
who had to go to the morgue to identify his body. "He was
lying on a table with at least 13 bullets in his thin body."
She called Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh, a lawyer who
worked for the archdiocese's Commission on Human
Rights. "When he answered the phone, I just started
crying," Sister Michael remembers. "He came down and
we made a big stink about the shooting. I took a judge to
the hospital to hear the testimony of one boy who had
survived and was paralyzed by a bullet in the spine. The
murders were never solved." That night was a turning
point for Sister Michael. A year earlier, in 1979, she'd
accepted a scholarship offered to her by the Cardinal of
Sao Paulo and begun attending law school. Now she knew
she had made the right decision: She would need more
than just her nun's habit to really help the people.
Today, Sister Michael and Greenhalgh are partners in a
law practice that exclusively handles cases involving
human rights or labor issues. Even though 25 years of
military rule in Brazil ended in 1985, and the country
ratified a new constitution. troubles continue.
In addition to working with the urban poor. Sister
Michael travels throughout Brazil investigating the kill-
ings of political activists, trying to build " parallel" cases
alongside those of the local law-enforcement officers. (In
some instances, she says. her investigation is the only one
done-because the police themselves are involved in the
crimes.) Her most famous case to date is that of Chico
Mendes. an environmentalist who led efforts to save the
Amazon rain forests and whose 1988 murder by cattle
ranchers attracted worldwide press attention; she helped
to compile the evidence that convicted his killers.
This latter part of Sister Michael's work is dangerous
business . She has been threaten~d with violence . and her
office has been ransacked. The three main targets of
Brazil's hired gunmen these days, she explai~s. are
church workers. lawyers. and union leaders. She is in two
out of the three categories-"and I work for the third...
Still, a poster on the wall of her oflice proclaims her
·determination: Nwrca Mais, it reads-"Never Again...
On it are snapshots or 42 people who have died or
disappeared in police custody.
Together, she and Greenhalgh collected suflicient evi-
dence to convict a notorious military-police officer nick-
named "Cabo Bruno... who had openly admitted to killing
"only fifty" people . After he received a sentence of 120
years in prison, he swore he would kill Sister Michael and
Greenhalgh if he ever had the chance.
In November of last year, Cabo Bruno escaped from
prison. The complicity of the authorities was evident: He
was somehow able to leave with all of his belongings and
three machine guns. Sister Michael has heard rumors that
he !led to Paraguay. but she keeps a low profile.
After stopping at her office to answer phone calls.
Sister Michael heads for the tenements. calledCorti-
~- (Cortir;o means "hil'e" or "cork" and is used to
describe a living space so crowded that it resembles the
network of cells and lllnnels in a beehive or a cork.) She
stops first at a meering of catadores, men who walk the
streets hauling carts and searching for wasrepaper and
cardboard. They are paid a pennyfor everyfour pounds of
Good Housekeeping/June 1991 75
paper they collect. Sister Michael has helped them form
an association-the first step toward a union.
Afterward, she visits a woman who is trying to organize
the tenants of a tenemelll. Walking down a mildewed,
cement corridor to the woman's apartment. she passes a
rickety ladder that leads up to a hole Clll in the ceiling; a
toddler peers down. "Now you see why these places are
called corti~os," she says. This particular hive, maybe
twice the square footage of a typical American home,
harbors 15 families. Sister Michael'sfinal stop for the day
is at a small favela. home to 21 families, on a sliver of
abandoned land between two large city-owned lots. It is
the rare happy occasion, a party to celebrate the opening
ofa new social hall. Blll Sister Michael knows that there's
another reason to celebrate: In her briefcase, she has a
copy ofthe lawsuit she has filed on their behalf, claiming
squatters' rights to rhe land.
Inside the social hall, musicians play an accordion.
triangle, and guitar-the traditional [orr6 band ofBrazil's
northeast, an impoverished region that was the birthplace
ofmany ofthe country ·s homeless class. The women show
offa cake the size of a 1velcome mat; two dozen children
stand transfixed, staring at an ocean ofpale yellow icing.
Sister Michael grins. "The enduring qualiry ofthe Brazil-
ians." she says, "is that they always believe things will get
beuer. As black as things get. they still have hope."
So. too, is the enduring quality of their protector.
defender, and supporter- a 49-year-old American nun
who. armed with only a tattered paperback copy of
Brazil's ngw constitution and her ownfaith. is determined
to help them turn their hope into reality. *
Andrew Revkin is the author a/The Burning Season: The
Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon
Rain Forest.

Help of the Helpless

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

More from Earth Institute of Columbia University (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Help of the Helpless