Sister Rose's Passion

Oren Jacoby's Oscar-nominated 2004 documentary short features an engaging, indeed irresistible subject: Sister Rose Thering, a Dominican nun born and bred in small-town Wisconsin, who undertook a scholarly study of Christian anti-Semitism in the days before the Vatican II council, when the supposed Jewish responsibility for Christ's crucifixion was still officially taught. Her pioneering work bore fruit in one of the council's final documents, which explicitly condemned such doctrines, and the last two popes have gone far to effect reconciliation by apologizing for the Catholic Church's historical role in justifying and, to some extent, promoting anti-Semitism. This portrait of the now elderly but still feisty Sister Rose isn't technically slick, but through stills, interviews, and footage of her presentations to students, the film presents her once-lonely crusade as an uplifting story, especially since it also touches critically on the subservient role women are usually expected to play within the male-dominated Church. Sister Rose's Passion also reminds us that anti-Semitism in Catholic circles is not a dead issue, focusing toward the close on Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, which Rose sees as a throwback to earlier, now discredited, attitudes. In a sense, this emphasis on Gibson's film is unfortunate (although timely, given Gibson's recent, headlines-making, drunken anti-Semitic tirade), making the documentary seem like a rejoinder to the movie rather than a more general response to a still-prevalent misunderstanding of doctrine. But Rose's courageous stand is what's important here, and it comes across powerfully. DVD extras include extended interviews with Thering, a conversation between Thering and fellow nuns, footage of the film's reception at the Tribeca Film Festival, and TV personality Charlie Rose's interview with the filmmaker (bringing the total running-time to the 88 minutes advertised on the DVD jacket). Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)