Pope Francis released his document on the Amazon region on the 15th anniversary of the assassination in Brazil of U.S. Notre Dame Sister Dorothy Stang, a missionary who defended the poor and the environment.

Her life and sacrifices are emblematic of what many participants at the October Synod of Bishops for the Amazon had said: Women in the region are leaders of both community and religious life; their defense of the poor and the natural environment is consistent and consistently results in threats to their lives. In his postsynodal apostolic exhortation, “Querida Amazonia” (Beloved Amazonia), which was published on Feb. 12, Pope Francis said consecrated men and women in the Amazon are “closest to those who are most impoverished and excluded.”

The Pope devoted an entire section of the document to praising the way women — lay and religious — have kept the faith alive in the Amazon region. But he flatly rejects a request made by several synod participants to consider ordaining women deacons; the request did not receive enough support to be included in the Synod’s final document. At the end of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, and on numerous other occasions, Pope Francis has said Catholics still have not understood how and why women are important in the church.