A daily radio program in April to remember Cleusa, a martyr to the indigenous cause

Radio América is the FM station (91.1) of the Archdiocese of Vitoria (Espiritu Santo, Brazil), and during April, the anniversary of the martyrdom of the missionary Augustinian Recollect Cleusa Carolina Rodhy Coelho (†04/28/1985), broadcasts around the eight-thirty at night the program “April con Cleusa”.

The director and presenter of this program, the Augustinian Recollect missionary Josefina Casagrande, has been interviewed on this same station, in this case in the program “Among Friends”, in the section called “Papo Cabeça” (something like “important conversation”).

This is the transcript of this interview that was used to present the program “April with Cleusa”, to its director and presenter and, especially, to the main protagonist for the testimony of her life given to the last consequences, sister Cleusa.

Since the beginning of April, we have talked about Sister Cleusa in the evenings on 91.1 FM. Let’s learn more details about Cleusa by talking to her sister Josefina Casagrande. Welcome to Radio América, can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Good afternoon, I appreciate this invitation because talking about Sister Cleusa is always an honor and a responsibility. I was born in 1946 in Forno Grande, a town in the interior of the municipality of Castelo, state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. I come from a traditional Italian family deeply Catholic. Every night we prayed the rosary and my father told us frequently that any of us could be a priest or nun if we wished to.

I met the Augustinian Recollect Missionaries (ARM) through the Augustinian Recollects friars of the Parish. I have already completed 56 years of consecrated life and I’m not repented. During this time I worked with my Congregation in Vitória (Espírito Santo, Brazil) and in Lábrea (Amazonas, Brazil) in two different periods; By the way, First of all, I was living with Sister Cleusa in that community.

I have also lived in Madrid (Spain) as a member of the General Council of the ARM, and in Argentina, where with great pain we had to close the community. I worked in the mission of Itabuna (Bahía, Brazil) until last December, and now I am in the community that we have in the neighborhood of Tabajara de Cariacica (Espírito Santo, Brazil), where we serve and take care of our older sisters.

Why talk about Sister Cleusa precisely in April?

When I lived in Argentina in 2019, I was inspired to organize “April with Cleusa” for the entire Congregation. Sister Cleusa was a martyr and Bishop Peter Casaldáliga in the Pilgrimage of the Martyrs that he organized in Mato Grosso said: “A people that forgets its martyrs does not deserve to survive.”

Imagine if we forgot about the main martyr, Jesus. At the inauguration of the Sanctuary of the Martyrs, Casaldáliga asked many times that we remember that testimony of total dedication.

Cleusa does not belong only to our Congregation, nor even only to the Catholic Church, but also to the world. We must not keep her legacy just for ourselves, It would be selfishness, it would be locking ourselves in, the good must be shared, the testimony of it, the testimony of Jesus and so many saints, must be shared.

What was Sister Cleusa’s life and mission like?

Cleusa was born in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim (Espírito Santo, Brazil) into a normal family that, according to the customs of the time, sent their children to school and catechesis. After she made her first communion, Cleusa became a regular participant of Sunday Mass, she even encouraged and led her brothers… That’s how she met the Augustinian Recollects, who looked after her Parish, and she also decided to join the Pious Union of the Daughters of Mary.

During one of those meetings, she attended a talk and saw some slides of the mission of Lábrea, in the Amazon, which awakened in her the call to be a missionary: “I want to be a missionary in Lábrea.”

Cleusa was especially intelligent, she studied in public school and studied Secondary Education with such performance that she received a prize for which she, without competition, could choose the school in which she wanted to work. But it was just at that moment when she decided to become religious and her family, Although they did not forbid it, did not support her much either, because they thought that after winning that special award for her performance, she should think about a much brighter future promising for her.

But Cleusa was determined and began her training process with the Augustinian Recollects Missionaries, first in Niterói and then in Colatina, where she professed. And her first assignment was in Lábrea, in 1954, when she was still very young. They were the beginnings of that community in the Amazon. And she began that new mission with great confidence, thinking that it was going to be important for her and the Congregation. She was subsequently assigned to study Anglo-Germanic literature in Vitória. But she never left aside her missionary aim and always got involved in pastoral care projects with the poorest.

In Vitória, an important port, she knew how to speak Portuguese, Spanish, English, and German she began to serve migrants who were in the suburbs of the city looking for a better life. She also collaborated with the Braille Institute supporting the blind people, and with the Ecumenical Institute. She was subsequently sent to Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, where she accompanied the street children. Consequently, she never stopped working as a teacher to collaborate with the support of her religious community.

At that time in Manaus, I had the opportunity to accompany her once to the Police station specializing in minors. As soon as she entered all the accused minors surrounded her and asked for food. She always said: “It’s okay, but first a little snack of the Word of God.” She then read them a gospel passage and then she distributed food.

After this season in Manaus, she was sent again to Lábrea. The Prelature assumed the Indigenous Pastoral as a priority. Those were difficult times for the indigenous peoples, who suffered from constant aggression from those who wanted to use their lands for economic benefit.

Cleusa assumed this pastoral care and began preparing with various courses offered by the Indigenous Missionary Council. She began a plan to visit the villages, knowing each ethnic group and its characteristics, culture, and needs. She had direct contact with the Apurinã, Paumarí, and Jarawara peoples.

The Apurinã culture had an enormous tradition of “warrior people”, feared by all other indigenous people. Each village had its chief and it was not uncommon for there to be between villages more tensions than collaboration.

Those who wanted to take advantage of their lands used this cultural characteristic to promote division and quarrels between villages and chiefs. So one of their frequent strategies was to speak ill to some chiefs and villages of others to sow discord.

The other strategy they used was economic deception. At that time, the radio Rio Mar of Manaos publicly announced the official sales prices of the jungle products, such as chestnuts. However, when the Apurinã arrived at the center of the municipality to sell the products from their villages since they did not listen to or understand the radio, the merchants sought to obtain more benefits by paying less than the official amount.

The Indigenous Pastoral had access to that official information from the Radio, so they made it a habit to accompany the Indians so that no one would deceive them. Cleusa was a regular in these negotiations, which more than once ended with everyone in the Police station because the merchants were crying out loud, denouncing the sisters, generating confusion.

Cleusa gradually gained fame and the animosity of those who wanted to take advantage and divide indigenous villages. And in that environment of “trying to get out of the way”, the facts of her martyrdom arrived.

The merchants planned to kill the chief of the village of Japiim, a crime that would be committed by an indigenous person from another village who had already tried to collect chestnuts within the limits of Japiim without having the right to do so and he thirsted for revenge.

When the news reached the Labrea that there was a confrontation in Japiim and that there were dead, Cleusa brought forward a trip that she had already planned to that village. She found the village empty and with two new graves. She continued upstream until she found someone to explain to her what happened. She was told that the head of Japiim had saved his life by fleeing into the jungle, but his wife and his son were unable to escape the attack.

The next day Cleusa began to return down the Paciá River and passed through Japiim again, where this time she did find the boss and they were able to talk. Although she was devastated, Cleusa extracted from him the commitment not to start a river of blood and hatred to get revenge. She also obtained knowledge of who had perpetrated the crime.

Cleusa then continued the journey toward Labrea, but on the way, she met the killer. They already knew each other. Cleusa, seeing the imminent danger, sends whoever accompanied her in the canoe to jump into the water and save himself:

— “You have children to take care of, go now, I’m going to try to talk to him.”

What we know was thanks to the testimony of this person. He couldn’t see the scene because he was hiding in the water, but he did hear the shots and screams uttered by the murderer.

The witness managed to reach Lábrea the next day. It was Sunday morning. That afternoon, through another channel, the rumor reached Labrea that Cleusa had died. Her body was not found until Friday and on Saturday the body was taken to Labrea. The autopsy revealed the shots and signs of torture and dismemberment.

The people of Lábrea, spontaneously, demonstrated in favor of sister Cleusa, some even accused the authorities of being behind the crime. Someone put a banner in the cemetery: “Sister Cleusa, mother of the poor and the oppressed.”

The days that the search lasted and the way her body was found filled us with sadness and sorrow. Debate was generated in the city. Some said: “She got to work for the Indians, well, look how she ended up.”

Other voices, such as those of the missionaries of the Indigenous Missionary Council, said: “That death is still going to bear fruit. It has not been in vain, it has been for justice, for the rights. We have seen the passion and death, but we will still see the Resurrection of Cleusa.”

That was in April 1985. Even the one who participated in the searches later became a bishop.

Yes, it was in 1985 and at that time the Augustinian Recollect Jesús Moraza was the vicar general. It all just happened when the bishop, Florentino Zabalza, was making his visit ad limina in Rome. Zabalza himself before leaving said, “I hope we don’t have sad news, because there are too many conflicts, I am worried.”

Jesús Moraza was in charge of organizing the search and found the body himself. Later he was named bishop, now he is bishop emeritus and continues to live in a rural community of the Prelature.

Next year will be the 40th anniversary and we are thinking, for now, of organizing a musical festival in Manaus, with music about Sister Cleusa made by Zé Vicente. We will see if it is achieved and if there are other initiatives.

Will we have a saint born in Espírito Santo in the future?

Surely so, people have already hailed Sister Cleusa as a martyr of the indigenous cause. In the first Pilgrimage of the Martyrs that took place in Mato Grosso a year after the murder of Cleusa, organized by Pedro Casaldáliga, He asked everyone to bring their martyrs and present them.

Cleusa was already presented as a “martyr to the indigenous cause” and there were many who asked for her intercession for the indigenous peoples. And every martyr is a saint.

How does the “April with Cleusa” program work?

Every day the text of the day’s gospel is read and some commentary is also narrated about Sister Cleusa by one of her admirers. It is a form of keeping alive the memory of Jesus through the gospel and the memory and legacy of Sister Cleusa.

It is also a way of uniting with the listeners to pray: we reflect at the same about the gospel and about a person who lived that gospel until the ultimate consequences.

Cleusa was a woman of God, she prayed a lot, and she took the indigenous people to the chapel to pray when she visited them, it was common to see herself in the chapel, talking with Jesus.

I invite everyone to strengthen their faith by listening to Radio América every day at 8:30 p.m. hours the program “April with Cleusa”. May our sister Cleusa accompany us on our pilgrimage through this world. May we be a little witness of Jesus just as she was a radical witness of Him.

1 of 16