Evolving views on death penalty excite Sister Helen

For her tireless efforts working against the death penalty and ministering to death row inmates and victims’ families, Sister of St. Joseph Helen Prejean received the 2013 Robert M. Holstein “Faith That Does Justice” award May 7 from the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN).

The first non-Jesuit and first woman to receive the award, Sister Helen was surrounded by friends who toasted her at a reception at Café Reconcile in New Orleans.
 

“Her passion for advocacy and social justice runs parallel to the social justice mission of ISN,” Christopher Kerr, executive director of the Ignatian Solidarity Network said. “Sister Helen’s ability to speak to the intrinsic relationship between faith and justice as she invites people to learn about the anti-death penalty movement is a tremendous illustration of our work for social justice education and advocacy.” 
 

The annual honor goes to an individual “who demonstrates a commitment to leadership for social justice grounded in his or her faith.” The award’s namesake, the late Robert (Bob) M. Holstein, was a former California Province Jesuit priest, labor lawyer, fierce advocate for social justice and a founder of the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice, where Sister Helen has spoken. 

Her work of prison outreach
Sister Helen’s work with social justice and prison ministry began in 1981 in New Orleans in the St. Thomas housing project where she witnessed injustices in the underserved population. She wrote to prison inmates as part of her order’s community outreach and eventually became a spiritual advisor to death row inmates. She said she has “watched six men strapped down on a gurney and killed” due to the death penalty.
 

She chronicled her experience in 1994 in the book “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty,” which later became a major motion picture. In 2004, she published a second book, “The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.”
 

She is penning a third book, “River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey.”

Still a tireless voice against the death penalty, Sister Helen is pleased to report a national shift in attitudes. In 1996, 78 percent of Americans supported the death penalty. The percentage among Catholics was 80 percent – the more they attended Mass, the more they supported it.

By 2005, polls showed only 62 percent of Americans and 59 percent of Catholics continued to support the death penalty.

She attributes the change to the church’s teachings about life finally reaching Catholics “in the pews” attending Mass. Pope John Paul’s encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” or “The Gospel of Life” in 1995 emphasized the value of life from beginning to end.

“In ‘The Gospel of Life,’ (Pope John Paul) said when we have a way to defend life through nonviolent means, we must choose the bloodless means,” she said.

By 1999, Pope John Paul was strongly defending life by speaking against abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide and the death penalty “because it is cruel and unnecessary, and even those among who have done a terrible crime have dignity.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops joined forces against the death penalty, and there was a grassroots movement cropping up.

“Whenever you have seen this change, there is a grassroots group of people behind it and the Catholic Church behind it,” Sister Helen said.

She said for people to have a change of heart, they must hear and understand all the sides of the death penalty issue – from the person accused of the crime, to the victim and victim’s family.

“You have to stand by people in the outrage,” she said. “You can’t glaze over the outrage. … It is a growing of the heart that people have to make. The beginning point is the outrage felt from the victim’s family.”

Sister Helen said she learned an important lesson about attending to the needs of victims’ families through Lloyd LeBlanc whose son David was murdered by a death row inmate she ministered to as a spiritual adviser.

As he took her through his “road of forgiveness” of the man who killed his son and asked her to pray with him, she began to understand the necessity to reach out to victims’ families as well as to minister to death row inmates. LeBlanc showed her how, over the years, the hatred he harbored against his son’s murder was killing him, and he had a change of heart in order to live again.

As her friends toasted her with her favorite drink – scotch – Sister Helen said she hoped her life’s work had shone a light on the death penalty. She believes if we can change people’s attitudes about the death penalty, we can change other social wounds as well, such as racism.

The Ignatian Solidarity Network, founded in 2004, is national, social justice education and advocacy organization where people can be inspired for faith and justice by the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Visit www.ignatiansolidarity.net.

Christine Bordelon can be reached at cbordelon@clarion herald.org.