Fort Benning protestor still fishing for justice

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 13, 1998 by Doug Grow

Sometime in the next few weeks we are supposed to believe the-country will become a safer place because a 70-year-old woman, Carondelet Sr. Rita Steinhagen, will be whisked of four streets and hauled to a federal penitentiary to serve a six-month sentence.

Sr. Rita, who has been serving the poor and the downtrodden in Minneapolis for only a few decades, was among 22 people found guilty in a federal court of trespassing at the U.S. Arrays School of the Americas at Fort Benning in Georgia. She not only was hit with the hard time but with a $3,000 fine as well -- a hefty sum when you've been living with a vow of poverty for 47 years.

Sr. Rita was surprised by the sentence. "What did you expect?" I asked.

"I didn't expect six months," she said.

"When you do the crime, you're going to get the time," I said.

But Sr. Rita says that's not true. She talked of how people who allegedly taught at the School of the Americas have murdered and raped in Latin American countries and never served any time at all. Sr. Rita and others of her ilk keep thinking that if U.S. citizens ever understand that their tax money is being spent to train despots, rapists and murderers, they will be outraged and demand policy changes.

To date, it's not working out that way. So far, what's happening is that people such as Sr. Rita are being sent to prison for having the audacity to peacefully protest, and the rest of us are yawning. Anyway, the reason Sr. Rita and the others got hit with the prison sentences for their misdemeanor offenses is that they were repeat offenders at Fort Benning.

So, who is Rita the Repeater?

For starters, she really doesn't look like a threat. She has white hair, a quick smile and a delightful sense of humor. When she got off the plane at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after being sentenced in Georgia, she was greeted by friends and supporters clapping and singing "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Sr. Rita's response to the greeting?. "I said: `This is peculiar. I got six months in jail, and everybody's clapping.'"

There's little in her biography to suggest that she's a threat. She grew up in Walker, Minn., learning to fish. Her single most prized possession is her fishing rod, which she uses whenever she can.

She didn't plan to become a nun. At 23, she went to visit a friend who was becoming a nun and discovered she felt comfortable. "Do you think I belong here?" she asked one of the sisters. "I certainly do," was the response.

And so it was done. Sr. Ann Walton, who is among the orders leadership team, said Sr. Rita has represented the soul of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet "She is one of our finest," Sr. Ann said. "She's in the pattern of the women [sisters] in the French Revolution who were imprisoned for their beliefs. She's in a very long line of people who have given of themselves."

Over the years, Sr. Rita has worked as a medical technologist. In her career, she has founded a place called The Bridge, a shelter for runaway youth, and The Free Store. (The Free Store, founded by Sr. Rita in 1968, still exists, though it is no longer affiliated with the Sisters of St. Joseph.) Of late she has been working in Minneapolis with torture victims at the Center for Victims of Torture.

Through the years, she has been arrested at several Twin Cities protests but has never served jail time. She has made frequent work-related trips to Latin American countries and has been horrified at what she has seen and heard. It was the Latin American journeys that led her to protest at the School of the Americas.

This woman who has devoted her life to quietly doing good didn't accept her sentence in silence. "I told the judge: `Your honor, I'm 70 years old today and I've never been in prison and I'm scared. I tell you, when decent people get put in jail for six months for peaceful demonstration, I'm more scared of what's going on in our country than I am of going to prison.'"

The response of Judge Robert Elliot? "He didn't say anything," she said. "He couldn't care less."

Now she's back in Minnesota waiting for the letter that will inform her where she's supposed to go to serve her sentence. "There's no room," she said of her delayed sentence. "Isn't that something? You have to wait in line to go to prison."

This weekend she planned to do her waiting by going ice fishing in northern Minnesota. Rita the Repeater is going fishing because she needs solitude -- but beyond that, shell be in prison when the spring opener rolls around.

Doug Grow writes from Minneapolis. This article is reprinted with permission of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.