In a world where it’s so easy to find doers of evil, I take solace in heroes of the year just past. These are the women and men (and sometimes children) whose actions have given hope to others.

As we know to our shock and grief, some of them have died violent deaths. But they live on in the hearts of countless others.  I like to think of them as redeemers of the world.

My thoughts have been turning constantly to Victoria Soto.  She was the young teacher who died from the assassin’s bullets on December 14 in Newtown Connecticut. Her first-graders, though, were saved, because she had hurried them into the closet that served her classroom.

Victoria was not the only adult who acted heroically in that school on that day. Five others were shot dead when they tried to put themselves between the gunmen and the children. We should never forget what they did.

Another hero of 2012 was Chris Stevens, the American Ambassador to Libya.  He lost his life on September 11, when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked by a hostile crowd and set on fire. Three of his American colleagues died as well.

The ambassador was known for reaching out to the Libyan people, making friends with them and talking with them in Arabic. A diplomat who was dedicated to human values, he represented our country at its best.

I hope that I will never forget Malala Yousafzai, the fifteen-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen. They intended to kill her and almost did.  She had offended them by protesting the closing of schools and proclaiming the importance of education for girls and women.

Fortunately, Malala was flown to a British hospital in Manchester where, miraculously, surgeons managed to save her life and her brain.  She has asked the Pakistani government not to name a school after her because she fears the Talibani will be provoked to attack the girls who are being educated there.

Another woman who has inspired others, both in her own country and in other parts of the world is Aung San Suu Kyi. This heroic Burmese woman had endured house arrest for almost fifteen years until the repressive military government gave way to one more respective of human rights.

By standing up against tyranny, Suu Kyi has given hope to the people of Burma (or Myanmar as some persist in calling it). And she has made it possible for many political prisoners to be released, and for credible elections to be held.

She now sits in her country’s parliament, and was able to greet President Obama when he visited her country, the first American president to do so.

A different kind of heroism is represented by a local physician, Joseph Murray, who died last November at age 93. His work extended the range of surgical possibility. In 1954, he was the first to transplant a kidney and make it work.

An estimated one hundred thousand people around the world have benefited from Dr. Murray’s transplant breakthrough. His work would win him the Nobel Prize for Medicine. As those who knew him can attest, he was also a humble, devout and compassionate man.

Many other people could be included in my homemade honor roll of people who have given us hope about our world.  Among them, I think of the heroic medical personnel, doctors, nurses, and aides, who travel to difficult parts of the world to treat those in need of help. At considerable risk to their own wellbeing, they do not hesitate to reach out to the poor and needy.