Sister María Agustina Rivas Lopez, who was murdered by terrorists during Peru s political violence, was beatified May 7 during a liturgy in the same plaza where she was shot to death in 1990.
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A farmer harvests an improved variety of cassava in Les Anglais, Haiti, in 2010. Pope Francis and other Catholic leaders have called for international policymakers to pay particular attention to small farmers and farm families. (CNS/Barbara J. Fraser)
When Sr. Anne Falola was a girl in Ibadan, Nigeria, the city was home to half a million people. Many were farm families who worked in fields on the outskirts of the city when rains were falling, then devoted themselves to household tasks and cultural activities during the dry season.
Since then, metropolitan Ibadan s population has swelled to some 6 million, and urban sprawl has swallowed up many of the family farms. Needs have also changed, and over the years Falola, 55, who is now on the governing board of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of the Apostles, has watched as farmers have turned to cash crops suitable for export, using chemical fertilizers and pesticides to increase yields.