Account: Nun's Murderer Says Family's Forgiveness Gave Him New Life

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This is indeed an amazing story of forgiveness. I wonder though why he did as such. How horrifying.
 
There’s been a couple of threads on this in the past (INDIA - Sister Rani’s murderer now says, “Christians are India’s hope” and News: “Murderer of Catholic Nun in India Confesses, Converts, Proclaims Christians Are India’s Hope”). I think there was one more that gave a lot of background on why he did it, but I can’t find it now.

Anyway, the links above give some additional background:

“He does realise though that India’s rightwing hate Christians. “Before they drove me to kill, I heard so many hate-filled lies about the missionaries and Christians. They used to tell me that Christians converted people through tricks and that their work with the poor was only for show. Now however I can say without a doubt that the missionaries do nothing but work and help the poor and the marginalised. They have not secret design, other than serve God.””
 
Let’s keep political agenda postings in the political threads. This story is an amazing example of Christian forgiveness; let’s keep it focused on that worthwhile topic.

This attack seems to have a complex mix of “reasons”. Note that OP’s link referred to “…at the behest of money lenders affected by the nun’s social work among village women who were organizing self-help groups.”

I remember the earlier thread on this had a lot more information on those economic reasons behind the attacks. I’ll take another look and see if I can find it to flesh this out some more.
 
I read through all of the past CAF threads on this topic. This thread has some good, relevant discussion. DaddyGirl, I see you did some nice sleuthing there and contributed good information about the nature of his “conversion.” Thank you for that!

This article gives more background on the motivations behind the killing:
article:
Throughout her life, Sister Rani Maria worked tirelessly to help the villagers - mostly poor tribal - to establish self-help groups by obtaining financial credit and other forms of economic support. She made sure that they were granted to the villages in order to improve the welfare and earning potential. She worked tirelessly to help this often oppressed sector of society.

At the same time, she always ensured that these movements were popular in nature, without external influences: she preferred to act as a catalyst of humble people. In this she strengthened the panchayats (village councils) urging them to consider and be aware of their rights and their responsibilities, providing assistance through planned and systematic development programs.

In December 1994, in the run up to the village council elections, a fight broke out between Catholic tribal families( Barela sub-caste) and a right wing candidate. Police arrested some of the Catholics and Sr. Rani hired a lawyer and had them released. This created a lot of hostility and a false impression that Sr Rani Maria was instigating people against them.

Left to themselves, the tribal would not be so emboldened as to stand up to any pressure from a powerful political force or even engage the services of a lawyer to fight their legal battle. On February 25, 1995, a farmer was who was hired to kill Sr Rani Maria…
Click to expand...
Between this and the other reasons given, it sounds like the instigation was a mix of political rivalry, anti-Christian rhetoric, and Sister having stood up to powerful, moneyed interests.
 
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