Posted on 10/06/2006 11:28:37 PM PDT by SmithL
The prison bars didn't break Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch's spirit.
"I always felt free, even in prison," she said. "My inner spirit really felt free because I knew I had done the right thing. Now that spirit of freedom has just expanded."
Lentsch, 69, came home to East Tennessee on Friday after serving six months in a federal prison in Lexington, Ky., for trespassing. She and about 30 others had crossed a fence at Fort Benning, Ga., during a November 2005 protest against a training center they blame for human-rights violations in Latin America.
The Roman Catholic nun from Oak Ridge reported to prison in April. She stepped off the bus Friday in downtown Knoxville to cheers and applause from about 20 friends.
"She stayed the course," said the Rev. Erik Johnson of Maryville, a friend who's also spent time in prison for protests. "She's peace personified. Her journey in nonviolence has been steadfast."
Eight-year-old Emma MacLeod held a homemade "Welcome Home" banner decorated with doves and flowers.
"I just wanted her to feel good when she came home," Emma said.
Lentsch's friends lined up to hug her, then joined hands for a chorus of the civil-rights anthem "Eyes on the Prize."
"It's so wonderful," she said. "It's good to be home. There's no bars on the windows, no guards."
Lentsch became a nun at age 18 and has spent most of her life working for various causes, often taking part in protests and sometimes going to jail.
November's protest called for the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which offers training for military, law enforcement and civilian officials from around Latin America. The school's catalog lists courses that include engineering, first aid, antiterrorism planning and human rights.
Lentsch and others say some students from the school have gone home to commit murder, kidnapping, torture and acts of terrorism. School officials say they can't be held responsible for what former students do after leaving.
"People may come for one course, then go back to their jobs," said Lee Rials, a public affairs officer. "If you listen to the claims, not one of them is about the school itself. We've become a symbol of a foreign policy that these people don't like. They trespass out here thinking they're doing something worthwhile."
Lentsch said she'd cross the fence again if she got the chance.
"An officer at the prison asked me, 'Are you going to do this again?' " she said. "I said, 'I have to follow my convictions.' "
Lentsch spent her time in prison working in the kitchen and hearing the stories of her fellow inmates, most of them serving time on drug charges.
She brought home a souvenir - a travel bag made from one of her prison shirts and given to her by another inmate.
"We were all just trying to fan the embers of hope for each other," Lentsch said. "We told each other our stories and shared each others' tears. When you think of 69 years, six months is just a blip."
She plans to spend the next few days on a farm in nearby Grainger County, walking in the woods and enjoying her restored freedom before moving on to her next project.
"I really believe that everything we do makes a difference," she said. "Sometimes it's something so little. We just have to keep working for peace and justice."
Dear Sister, Let's sit down and talk about the human rights violations in this country, in fact in the city you just came home to. Let's talk about the hundreds of babies who died while you were scaling that fence. Then let's talk about why your order is dying out and others are blossoming.
Prison life is probably not very different than convent life.
KILL THEM ALL LET GOD SORT THEM OUT !!!!
explain please.
This letter appeared in the Newhall Signal on October 6, 2006.
Editor:
Willy Gutman's commentary, "School of Assassins One Step Away From Closure?" is so error-filled it must be challenged. I am the spokesman for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, and I consider such writing as a libel of the good people who work here and those who worked at the Army's School of the Americas. It is also an insult to your readers, who deserve better.
The U.S. Congress closed the Army's School of the Americas at the end of 2000, and created, in law, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Pompous or not, the name is of a successor to the School of the Americas, not the same. Sorry, no connection to the CIA, either.
It is ironic that Gutman predicts our demise in a year in which we have had more students in our 22 courses than ever before. Other nations of the OAS were happy to fill seats that were not filled when three of the countries he names chose not to send students. The other five he names all continue to send students.
The vote in Congress on Mr. McGovern's amendment to the Foreign Operations bill was relatively close to passing, but that was over in June. Interesting that it did not have any effect on the bill to suspend operations here; that bill never got enough support to even be brought up.
Here's the real shocker: Not a single case of anyone taking any course at the SOA and later using that information to commit a crime has ever been found - not even one. A very few took some course or courses at SOA and later did commit crimes, but no connection has ever been made. Do you truly believe that Lt. Leopoldo Galtieri learned something in his Engineer Operations course that led him to being part of Argentina's military junta 30-plus years later? SOAW puts the name of Augusto Pinochet in its notorious graduates list but the completion of the sentence after his name is, "was not a student at SOA." Every person listed shows attendance at a course or courses unrelated to later crimes. What is the point of naming the names if there is no cause-effect relationship? It is dishonest and misleading.
You don't have to take my word for it. WHINSEC is open to visitors at any time, including Gutman. All that Fort Benning requires is a photo ID, and I'll provide a map to our door. Visitors can sit in classes, talk with students and faculty, and review our instructional materials. Not only are we open to visitors; we are also one of the most supervised organizations, with our own federal oversight committee, called the Board of Visitors. Our BoV includes four members of Congress (including California's own Rep. Loretta Sanchez), a State Department official, two military officers and six civilians, two of whom are Catholic priests.
Lee A. Rials, Public Affairs Officer
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
Ft. Benning, Georgia
In Ann Arbor Michigan there is an order of nuns, Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, who have not been in existence that long. They have outgrown their convent and need to open up a second one in order to keep up with the number of women joining. The Dominican Sisters of Nashivile have similar problems, that is, they have a hard time housing all of their sisters, because they are growing so fast. The Missionaries of Charity, Mother Theresa's group are not hurting for vocations. Neither are the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. There is a cloistered convent in Wisconsin, Benedictine nuns, who cannot take anymore new sisters, now they have to go to France.
What do all these orders have in common? Well the nuns act like nuns. They teach, they care for the poor, they pray, they pray together and they dress like nuns. Women are attracted to this lifestyle, not the lifestyle of aging political hippies. So their orders are blossoming.
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