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Sister Dorothy Stang's shirt reads "The death of the forest is the end of our life" in Portuguese.

 How black must be the soul of someone who kills an elderly nun! Emptying seven bullets into a religious woman in her 70s and leaving her to die in the mud is a crime beyond belief, but it really happened in 2005 on a makeshift road in the Amazon. The victim’s name was Sister Dorothy Stang and the shooter was one of several pawns used by wealthy landowners in Brazil to get rid of an elderly nun who cared more about the poor of the earth than she did about their threats to shut her up permanently.

The murder of the nun and the judicial proceedings that have surrounded it since 2005 are the subject of They Killed Sister Dorothy, a fascinating documentary that aired on HBO after making the rounds of film festivals and is now on DVD.  It’s worth finding at a video store that can stock a few quality offerings in addition to a bazillion copies of the latest bloodfest. It’s narrated by actor Martin Sheen and features a moody theme song by Brazilian songstress Bebel Gilberto.

Sister Dorothy and her community of nuns worked in the jungles of Brazil’s Anapu region. The sisters were serving the poor and fighting to preserve the Amazon from ecological disaster. Twenty square miles of the rainforest are lost each day to logging and land-clearing that creates cattle ranches breeding meat the villagers can’t afford to buy. The sisters support a project called PDS that preserves the rainforest by alloting sustainable growth plots to the poor. It’s an equitable solution to save the rainforest and restore dignity to the poor. (The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur support the project and have a guide to the documentary that provides more information on the sustainability effort here.)

Before Sister Dorothy’s death, the Brazilian government seems to back the idea of the PDS, but landowners oppose it. Another arm of the govenment drags its feet on approving the projects and a land dispute develops over a plot in the very middle of the land set aside for the PDS. A wealthy rancher claims he owns the land in the rainforest and he produces a dubious document he says can prove it.

Ohio-born Sister Dorothy was tiny and elderly, but she was hardly a pushover. She speaks out in meetings and in media interviews about the need for the PDS and the tactics of the ranchers. She is walking on a mucky road when two men fire seven bullets into her body, which is later found on its stomach, wet and bloated. Sister Dorothy’s community in Brazil includes a friend, Sister Becky Spires. She joins Sister Dorothy’s brother, David Stang, in following the murder case and the trials that come after.

They Killed Sister Dorothy will make you angry while it restores your faith. It’s a reminder that there are still religious people who try to live the Gospel as it was written. Suffice it to say that the near-illiterate who pulled the trigger didn’t have a quarrel with Sister Dorothy, but those who promised him money to do it did. The trials of those the prosecutors tried to hold responsible are miscarriages of justice derailed by sleazy lawyers defending those with the means to pay their fees. The scuzziest of the lawyers is the nephew of a very good monsignor, as one of the sisters mentions later.

People of faith and people who work to protect the environment will find Sister Dorothy heroic. They Killed Sister Dorothy honors the work of a martyr who literally died for the poor of the earth. It’s worth seeking out in your video store.