Penny Lernoux (1940-1989)

Penny Lernoux was an American journalist and book author. Born in California, she studied at the University of Southern California. After rgaduation she got a job with the United States Information Agency (USIA), a government arm devoted to promoting U.S. policy overseas. Lernoux began working in Latin America in 1961, just before the Catholic Church was transformed by Vatican II. She worked in Rio de Janeiro and Bogotá for the USIA until 1964 and then moved to Caracas to write for Copley News Service, to which she remained bound by contract until 1967. Concerned about the growing gap between rich and poor in Latin America, she became interested in Liberation Theology. He first book, Cry of the People: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America, was published in 1977. She joined the National Catholic Reporter as a Latin American correspondent. For the rest of her life, Lernoux protested what she saw as the growing authoritianism in the Church under Pope John Paul II. This was the subject of her third book, People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism, published in 1989. Her fourth book, Hearts on Fire: The Story of the Maryknoll Sisters was opublished posthumously in 1993. After a short battle with lung cancer, Lernoux died on October 9, 1989.
(From Wikipedia)