PEOPLE

The Islamic Commission of Spain, the nation’s leading Islamic body, used March 11, the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people and were done in the name of al-Qaeda, to issue a religious order declaring that Osama bin Laden has forsaken Islam by backing such attacks. The commission said it hoped Muslim groups worldwide would issue similar pronouncements.

Maryknoll Sr. Lelia “Lil” Mattingly began a six-month sentence March 15 at the federal prison in Danbury, Conn. She was among 11 activists sentenced to jail time for a Nov. 21 demonstration at Fort Benning, Ga., home to the training facility formerly known as the School of the Americas. Mattingly said she expected jail would be cold and dreary but that her imprisonment follows Jesus’ way, “to speak the truth to power and pay the consequences.”

Undeterred by more than 26 months in prison, Dominican Sr. Jackie Hudson returned to her home in Washington state March 6 determined to continue her peace activism. Hudson and two other Dominican sisters entered a Minuteman III missile site in northern Colorado as part of an antinuclear weapons protest in October 2002. She hopes to serve her three years of probation in Washington state and continue her work with the Ground Zero Center.

The Tanzanian Cultural Trust Fund has honored Maryknoll Sr. Jean Pruitt for her work with Nyumba ya Sanaa (house of art), which has taken the works of Tanzanian artists to more than 30 international art exhibitions as well as helped hundreds of people to learn skills needed to earn their livings as craftspeople. Pruitt, who went to the East African nation in 1968, received the award last month wearing a special shawl and headdress.

National Catholic Reporter, March 25, 2005