Witness | Sr Helen Prejean, CSJ
April 21, 2010
Salt and Light Television

Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, has been instrumental in sparking international dialogue on the death penalty and helping to shape the Catholic Church's newly vigorous opposition to state executions. At the age of 40, she realized that being on the side of poor people was an essential part of the Gospel. She moved into the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans and began working at Hope House. During this time, she was asked to correspond with a death row inmate. She agreed and became his spiritual adviser. She is the author of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, published in 1993. The book became a best seller, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and spawned an Oscar-winning movie and an internationally-acclaimed opera. Join Fr. Thomas Rosica who interviews this remarkable woman religious of our time - a woman who reminds that when the truth sets us free, we may be very uncomfortable.

Dead Man Walking Nun's Journey Continues

Now that her story's been told in print, on screen, on the theater stage, and even in opera houses, Sister Helen Prejean finds herself looking back upon her Dead Man Walking experience with her upcoming book, River of Fire: A Spiritual Journey to Death Row. In it, Sister Prejean aims to take the reader back in time with her as she chronicles her personal awakening to the cause that became the source of her international standing today - fighting the death penalty. Appearing recently at the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Center as part of the organization's Speaker Series, Sister Prejean gave the packed house an early listen by reading from the book's prelude before lauching into a passionate and engaging talk. Click here to read the full story | Click here to see an interview and video clips of the talk | Click here to see a video about 'Execution Chronicles'

A Conversation With Sister Helen Prejean

Sister Helen Prejean from Big Picture Productions on Vimeo.

Naseem Rakha interviews Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, for Big Picture Productions and Capitol Community Television in Salem, Oregon.

This is the Day: Nuns on the Run
June 12, 2009
CatholicTV

Guests: Sister Elyse Marie Ramirez, OP, and Sister Lovina Francis Pammit, OSF, vocations directors in Illinois and coordinators of the Nun Run in Chicago. Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ talking about her experiences with death row inmates and the promotion of the dignity of life at all stages and her book "Dead Man Walking". Click here to visit the CatholicTV page for this episode of This is the Day

Related articles:

• Capital Defense Weekly: Sister Helen Hits The Small Screen
• USLaw.com: Sister Helen Hits the Small Screen
• MetroCatholic: 'Dead Man Walking' Nun and Author Sr. Helen Prejean will Appear on Talk Show To Fight For Life
• ProLifeBlogs.com: 'Dead Man Walking' Nun and Author Sr. Helen Prejean will Appear on Talk Show To Fight For Life

Search inner self for life’s passion
‘Dead Man Walking’ author advocates Saint Francis grads focus lives on love
May 3, 2009
Becky Manley, The Journal Gazette

During quiet meditation, when distractions are pushed away, a person can look within to find the fire of a guiding passion, then use it to reach out to others and spread that fire exponentially.

That was the message delivered by Sister Helen Prejean, 70, of New Orleans, during the University of Saint Francis commencement address Saturday. Click here to read the full story

Death penalty opponent Prejean speaks at UCO
March 5, 2009
Kathy Toppins, Special to The Edmond Sun

EDMOND — Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States,” spoke Tuesday night at the University of Central Oklahoma about her own walk from innocence to outrage as an anti-death penalty activist. Click here to read the full story

It's legal. It's accepted. Is it moral?
March 5, 2009
Ryan Croft, Senior Reporter, The Vista
Saint Joseph College, West Hartford, CT

Prejean, the internationally renowned author of "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States," is a famous advocate for abolishment of the death penalty in the US. Prejean said over 130 prisoners have been exonerated from death row since the US Supreme Court revived the death penalty in 1976. "[The court] said 'Sorry. We made a mistake'," she said. "That's not 'cause the court system was so thorough. It's 'cause college volunteers & and innocence projects combed through those records."Click here to read the full story

Sr. Helen Prejean’s “Memo” to President-elect Obama
November 8, 2008
Posted by Paul Lauritzen

The day after the election, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Sr. Helen Prejean to talk to her about the election and what she would say to the new president about the death penalty in this country. As always, her passion for social justice was inspiring. You can listen to the podcast below.

Debating the Death Penalty
November 5, 2008
Laura Sheehan
Saint Joseph College, West Hartford, CT

Over the past two years, the College has delved into the topic of capital punishment. The best-selling book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, was assigned to all first-year students as part of the Common Reading Program. Designed to ease students’ transition into college, the Program incorporates critical thinking and the discussion of challenging topics through a shared reading experience. Dead Man Walking proved an ideal choice with its personal account of a Religious woman’s struggle with the subjects of violence, guilt and, ultimately, retribution. Click here to read the full story

Sr. Helen Prejean talks about finding Christ on death row
October 8, 2008
The Catholic Commentator
BY DEBBIE SHELLEY
Assistant Editor

During a program sponsored by the St. Joseph Spirituality Center in Baton Rouge, Sister Helen Prejean CSJ tells her story about how her involvement with the poor lead her to become a leading advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in the United States. Click here to read the full story

Sr. Helen Prejean's talk at The Democratic Interfaith Gathering in Denver, CO in August, 2008.

Q&A: "I Tell People How the Death Penalty Is Actually Practiced"
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
IPS Inter Press News Service
Srabani Roy
IPS Washington correspondent

For over 20 years, Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun, has worked to educate the public about the death penalty. She has been spiritual adviser to eight death row inmates, turning her experience visiting one into the best-selling book, "Dead Man Walking". In 1995, the book was made into a film starring Susan Sarandon, winning the actress an Oscar for her performance.

IPS Washington correspondent Srabani Roy interviewed Sister Prejean about her long engagement against the death penalty. Click here to read the full story

Advocate nun Prejean visits Jersey City for talk on poverty
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Birmingham News
TORAINE NORRIS
News staff writer

"God hides where the poor are."

'Dead Man Walking' author calls for death penalty moratorium in Birmingham-Southern speech
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Birmingham News
TORAINE NORRIS
News staff writer

Sister Helen Prejean, anti-death penalty activist and author of the book "Dead Man Walking," called Monday for a moratorium on executions in Alabama until its support can be studied.

"Do we have to keep going down the road of death in Alabama?" she asked while speaking at the Birmingham-Southern College Bishop's Faith and Ethics Lecture on Monday afternoon. Click here to read the full story

Methodists to honor Helen Prejean
Nun will receive world peace award
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The Times-Picayune
From staff report

Sister Helen Prejean, the Louisiana nun who became one of the country's most prominent critics of the death penalty, will receive the 2008 World Methodist Peace Award in a ceremony Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Rayne Memorial Methodist Church in New Orleans. Click here to read the full story

Dead Man Walking, The Journey Continues
Ashland University
February 23rd, 2008

Sister Helen Prejean Speaks at Ashland University. Click here for more information and to watch the video.

This I Believe
As heard on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, January 6, 2008.
thisibelieve.org

I watch what I do to see what I really believe.

Belief and faith are not just words. It’s one thing for me to say I’m a Christian, but I have to embody what it means; I have to live it. So, writing this essay and knowing I’ll share it in a public way becomes an occasion for me to look deeply at what I really believe by how I act... Click here to read or hear a podcast of Sister Helen's essay.

U.N. adopts death penalty moratorium
The General Assembly's nonbinding vote comes despite opposition by U.S., other nations.
By Maggie Farley, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 19, 2007
Los Angeles Times

UNITED NATIONS -- The General Assembly adopted a moratorium on the death penalty Tuesday, overcoming opposition from the United States, China and others that argued each nation should be able to choose for itself how to combat crime.

The 104-54 vote for suspending executions is not legally binding, but represents a growing global trend against a punishment that many countries say undermines human rights, is a questionable deterrent and has mistakenly killed innocent people.

"There is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty's deterrence value and . . . any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty's implementation is irreversible and irreparable," the proponents said in the resolution adopted by the 192-nation assembly. There were 29 abstentions. Click here to read the full story(registration required).

Corzine Signs NJ Death Penalty Ban
By Ed Kasuba
December 17, 2007
KYW Newsradio

New Jersey governor Jon Corzine has signed into law a bill making his state the first one in four decades to abolish the death penalty.

The move is being hailed worldwide as a victory against capital punishment. Sister Helen Prejean, a nun who gained attention from her book and the eventual movie “Dead Man Walking," is a death penalty opponent. She points out that New Jersey’s action is being recognized in Rome, Italy, where the Colosseum is being lit for two nights:

"And the word will travel around the globe: there is a state that was the first to show life is stronger than death, that love is greater than hatred.” Click here to read the full story.

Five million sign petition to UN calling for end to capital punishment
November 5, 2007
Independent Catholic News

Five million signatures against the death penalty were presented to Srgian Kerim, president of the 62nd general assembly of the United Nations Organisation on Friday, in New York by a delegation of the Sant'Egidio community and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

The petition, signed by people from around the world, demands a universal moratorium for capital punishment. The text of the Sant'Egidio appeal was adopted by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty on 10 October. Click here to read the full story.

Sister preaches for end of death penalty
October 18, 2007
By Chelsea Delnero
The Equinox

"We are worth more than the worst act we commit," said Sister Helen Prejean as she addressed the Keene community with a lecture on capital punishment Oct. 11.

Prejean gave a speech in the Mabel Brown Room to a large audience of Keene State College students, faculty and other community members. Click here to read the full story.

Sister Helen Prejean calls on Maryland to end death penalty
October 1, 2007
By George P. Matysek Jr.
Catholic News Service

Standing beneath a large crucifix in the sanctuary of a Baltimore church, Sister Helen Prejean, internationally acclaimed death penalty abolitionist, stretched out her arms and intently fixed her gaze on the hundreds of people who filled the pews.

"The cross has become a symbol of the suffering caused by murderers and capital punishment in America," the Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille told the crowd at St. Pius X Church. Click here to read the full story.

Sister Helen Prejean Discusses the Ethical Implications of the Death Penalty
April 26, 2007
University of Virginia

Lecture by Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, who has long had a ministry to death row inmates in Louisiana and who received international acclaim for her book "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the US" (1993) which was made into a major motion picture starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. She is also the author of "The Death of Innocents: An Eye Witness Account of Wrongful Executions" (2004). Click here to hear the podcast.

Death-row nun lashes Guantanamo jail
March 27th 2007
By Matthew Westwood
The Australian

AMERICAN author and nun Helen Prejean has linked the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to attitudes that condone the death penalty. Click here to read the full story.

Slowly, sentiment changes on death penalty
March 16, 2007
National Catholic Reporter

Often enough on this page we have spoken of finding hope in the long haul. It is a phrase, or at least a sentiment, familiar to anyone working for social change. Change comes slowly, in tiny increments, but happen it will if the case can be made and people see sense in it. Click here to read the full story.

A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death
November 2006
by Antoinette Bosco
Columbia magazine

U.S. bishops, defending life, launch a campaign to end the death penalty. This article appeared in the November 2006 issue of Columbia magazine, the monthly publication of the Knights of Columbus, New Haven, CT. It is reprinted here with permission of the author and the publisher. Click here to read the full story.

Sister Helen Prejean Podcasts The Death of Innocents
July 30, 2006
Authors on Tour Live

Sister Helen Prejean, author of the national bestseller Dead Man Walking, discusses and reads from the new paperback edition of her important second book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions. Click here to hear the podcast.

10 Questions for Helen Prejean
Wednesday, February 21, 2005
By Amanda Ripley
Time Magazine

Sister Helen Prejean's 1993 book against the death penalty, Dead Man Walking, became a movie and even an opera. At 65, she's only getting angrier. In The Death of Innocents, she escorts two men to their executions - and this time she's sure they are not guilty. Prejean spoke, barely pausing for breath, with Time's Amanda Ripley about the Pope, politics and hypocrisy. Click here to read the full story.

To Prejean, death penalty system is guilty as sin
Thursday, February 8, 2005
By Jacqueline Blais
USA Today

During the summers of the 5½ years it took Sister Helen Prejean to write The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions (Random House, $25.95), she sought refuge in a place called Prayer Lodge on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. Click here to read the full story.

Sister fights death penalty
Thursday, November 18, 2004
By Kit Kadlec / News Staff Writer
Daily News Transcript

While most people have an opinion on the death penalty, few have ever witnessed an execution in person. Yesterday at the Noble and Greenough School, Sister Helen Prejean of the St. Joseph order described her own experience getting to know and then watching convicted murderer and rapist Elmo Patrick Sonnier being killed by electric chair in a Louisiana prison. Click here to read the full story.

'Dead Man Learning'
Monday, October 11, 2004
By Barri Bronston, staff writer
The Times-Picayune

Actor Tim Robbins wanted Jesuit schools to present his new stage adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean’s book Dead Man Walking before he took it to Broadway. This week, Jesuit in New Orleans becomes one of the first schools in the country to take him up on his offer. Click here to read the full story.

Opera Preview: 'Dead Man Walking' confronts the issue of capital punishment
Thursday, June 3, 2004

Pittsburgh Opera takes stroll down death row
Wednesday, June 2, 2004

An opera gives insight into the cruelty and unfairness of capital punishment
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
By Sister Helen Prejean

While most people have an opinion on the death penalty, few have ever witnessed an execution in person. Yesterday at the Noble and Greenough School, Sister Helen Prejean of the St. Joseph order described her own experience getting to know and then watching convicted murderer and rapist Elmo Patrick Sonnier being killed by electric chair in a Louisiana prison. Click here to read the full story.

Today, Pennsylvania stands at a crossroads. In a matter of weeks, Hubert Michael, a man suffering from severe mental illness, may die. His would be the fourth execution in Pennsylvania since the death penalty was reinstated here nine years ago.

Many of Pennsylvania's death row inmates are mentally retarded or mentally ill. Two years ago next month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution of the mentally retarded is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. However, this ruling might not save Pennsylvania's mentally retarded or mentally ill death row inmates. Hubert Michael is one of those men.

Pennsylvania's death row, with 227 men and five women currently awaiting execution, is the fourth largest in the nation. Over 90 percent of these Pennsylvania death row inmates could not afford a lawyer at their trial, and were therefore represented by the same state that sentenced them to death.

Isn't it time for Gov. Ed Rendell and Pennsylvania legislators, as well as all interested Pennsylvanians, to re-examine this system? Many groups, including my congregation, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, have been calling for a moratorium on capital punishment in Pennsylvania and throughout the nation.

Gov. Rendell has the opportunity to follow Illinois Gov. George Ryan. After the release of 13 death row inmates based on findings of innocence, Ryan enacted a moratorium on capital punishment in January 2000, stating that the system was "fraught with errors."

Errors may exist in any state's system of capital punishment. In all, over 100 people have been exonerated from death row since 1978, including six in Pennsylvania. One of these men, Nick Yarris, spent 22 years in solitary confinement on death row for a crime he did not commit. He was exonerated after DNA evidence proved his unequivocal innocence. I've accompanied five men as they died by the hand of the state, and I personally believe two of these men were innocent.

These experiences cemented one of my strongest convictions: That it is a profound moral contradiction to give the state the power to kill in order to prove that murder is wrong. This may not be your viewpoint. Indeed, there are many views on this subject, all of which are profoundly expressed in the opera "Dead Man Walking," shortly to be presented in Pittsburgh.

The savage and heinous crime of the rape and murder of innocents is not ignored in the production; rather, it is fully revealed. The excruciating emotional pain experienced by the victims' families is explored. Viewing this opera, you experience not only the journey of a death row inmate awaiting execution, but also the unimaginable journey undertaken by the family of two murdered teen-agers.

"Dead Man Walking" is an artistic work reflecting what occurs behind the scenes -- away from the public eye -- when collectively as a society, we execute a person.

Experiencing this opera took me to a deeper place. It is my sincerest hope that this will happen for others, too. I firmly believe art provides a channel for emotions and discoveries that we may not be able to access in other ways. So, please, join my congregation and me. There need be no argument or debate.

It is my hope that by listening and watching this opera we may share more than an exchange of words. Look for me at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh this June. I'll be the sister with the Louisiana accent, comfortable shoes and round glasses.

Of Many Things
by George M. Anderson, S.J.

SISTER HELEN PREJEAN once again last fall spent several days with us at America House. She was in New York in November to consult with the actor-playwright Tim Robbins about the stage version of her book Dead Man Walking. She found time to stop by my office to speak about this latest reincarnation of her book and the related one year workshop project with the play that will begin next fall at Jesuit highschools, colleges and universities around the country.

"They will have the option of performing the whole play or doing readings from it, or even excerpts in class," she said. "The only requirement for participating in the project is that one other academic discipline be involved, such as sociology, psychology or theology." This, she explained, stems from her belief that the project should promote informed discourse on the death penalty issue - "a deep, seminal, social justice matter," as she put it, "because it hits at the soul of our society," dealing as it does with racism, poverty and related justice issues.

The project will also involve a letter-writing campaign by students, who will contact their legislators to tell them, in effect, "I'm a young person concerned about what capital punishment is doing to our society, and would like to hear from you about this." In other words, Sister Prejean said, a response from legislators is expected. This will put them on the spot to explain their continued support for the death penalty in states that retain it - especially in the southem and southwestern states, where most executions take place. Overall, the play project is intended to serve as a call to action for students.

It was journalism students at Northwestern University, she pointed out, who through careful investigadon of overlooked evidence were responsible for the release from death row of a number of prisoners in Illinois. Their work was one of the factors that led then-governor George Ryan to impose a moratorium on executions there. "It's the young people of the countrv who are intervening and saving the lives of people on death row," she said. "So far 112 innocent people have been released, many of them through their efforts and those of the various innocence projects that have come into existence around the country."

A moratorium on all executions is Sister Prejean's goal. She rejects the argument that the death penalty can be "fixed" and thereby made more equitable. "Some people say, for instance, that we should give everybody on death row DNA tests." But in three-fourths of the cases, DNA testing would not apply, she explained, because there is no biological evidence.

In the course of our conversation, Sister Prejean also spoke of her forthcoming book, tentatively entitled Life, Liberty and the Machinery of Death, to be published by Random House. The latter part of the title is a phrase used by the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who, in referring to his own opposition to capital punishment, said "I will no longer tinker with the machinery of death." The book is divided into three parts, with the first two sections dealing with her story of accompanying two men who have since been executed and whom Sister Prejean believes to have been innocent. She has continued in her role of spiritual advisor to another - the sixth whom she has accompanied on Louisiana's death row. She visits him once a month, and keeps in touch between visits with phone calls and letters.

Because her forthcoming book was still not finished at the time of her visit, Sister Prejean has had to cut back on her travels and lecturing. But just before her visit to America House, she spent a day speaking with students at the University of Maryland. The university had decided to distribute copies of Dead Man Walking to all incoming freshmen and faculty - over 5,000 in all. "So it's still out there, doing good," she said. Over half a million copies have been printed, with translations into 12 lamguages. It has clearly struck a nerve, not just here but around the world.

Reprinted with permission from America and americamagazine.org, March 22, 2004. Copyright America Press, Inc. 2004. All rights reserved.

Death Penalty Foe Headlines CUA Awards Ceremony
By Warren Duffie
Featured in the Fall 2003 edition of CUA Magazine

It was 1 a.m. on an April morning in 1984 when Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., solemnly walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, got into a car with two friends and returned down Highway 66 to Baton Rouge. Before they traveled far, Sister Prejean felt a wave of nausea wash over her. Asking her friend to pull over to the side of the road, she got out and vomited.

Only an hour earlier, she had watched a man die in the prison’s electric chair. He was Patrick Sonnier, convicted of killing two teenagers — a man for whom she served as spiritual adviser. Sister Prejean says that she entered the friendship naively; she had no idea it would suck her into the moral maelstrom that is the debate on capital punishment.

“I was stunned and traumatized,” she says. “I kept asking myself, ‘Did I see that? Did they really kill him?’ It was done in the middle of the night, and I felt as though everyone else was asleep and I was the only one awake. That’s what motivated me to be a witness about this process and speak out against it.”

On Oct. 31, 2003, at a celebratory dinner held on campus for several hundred guests, Sister Prejean was presented with the James Cardinal Gibbons Medal, the highest honor bestowed by Catholic University’s Alumni Association. The medal is given each year to an individual who has served the nation, the Catholic Church or The Catholic University of America in an exemplary way.

“It was fitting for us to present Sister Helen Prejean with the James Cardinal Gibbons Medal,” says CUA’s president, the Very Rev. David M. O’Connell, C.M., who hosted the dinner. “She has been a passionate defender of the sanctity of human life and has argued eloquently against the death penalty through her personal witness and her writings. And though we cannot claim Sister Prejean as one of CUA’s own, she is linked to our CUA family — her father Louis graduated from CUA’s law school in 1925.”

The awardee is the author of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, which was nominated for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize and spent 31 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. In 1996 the book was developed into a film starring Sean Penn and CUA alumna Susan Sarandon, B.A. 1968, and written and directed by Tim Robbins. The movie received four Oscar nominations for Best Actress (which Sarandon won), Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

Sister Prejean was introduced to the capital punishment debate in January 1982, when an employee of the Louisiana Coalition on Jails and Prisons asked her if she would be interested in becoming a pen pal to a death-row inmate. She agreed, and so began her friendship with Sonnier.

“I remember that he wrote me right back, saying that he was so grateful that someone wrote to him because it was so lonely on death row,” says Sister Prejean with a soothing Louisiana accent. “He had been trying to face death alone, but it had been too hard. Then, when I realized that he had no one to visit him, I decided to go to see him. He was like a thirsty bird gobbling up every drop of water that I offered.”

After Sonnier’s execution, Sister Prejean befriended two more death-row inmates. During that time, she also reached out to the murder victims’ families, who called her to task for caring more about the criminals than the victims.

“At first, I didn’t know what to do with the victims’ families,” she remembers. “I thought they would be angry with me because I was spiritual adviser to the men who killed their loved ones — that I would only add to their pain. That was a cowardly act and my biggest mistake. If I could do anything differently, I would have reached out to those families sooner and not have let my cowardice get in the way.” (Sister Prejean has since established Survive, a New Orleans support group for victims’ families.)

In 1991 she began to chronicle her experiences in the book, published two years later. But she was worried when she began to discuss the possibility of a film with Sarandon and Robbins. After all, she jokes, there hadn’t been a good movie about nuns since “The Bells of St. Mary’s.”

“I had great reservations about making the book into a film because I figured no one would get it right,” Sister Prejean recalls. “But Susan and Tim were different. We worked so closely to capture the right spirit.”

Although she says the success of the book and film was nice, the most satisfying thing for her was the way that success opened up new doors in the discussion of the death penalty. Capital punishment was an issue that Hollywood didn’t want to address directly, and many studio executives rejected Robbins’ idea for the movie.

“None of them thought it would be a success because they didn’t think the American public would want to reflect that deeply,” Sister Prejean explains. “ ‘Dead Man Walking’ showed that you could construct this issue in a way that could attract mainstream America and be a success at the box office.”

Her book and movie have proven to be catalysts for a broader movement against the death penalty. This past January, for example, Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the death sentences of his state’s 156 death-row inmates, saying the death penalty system there was deeply flawed.

Looking back over her 20 years of counseling inmates and grief-stricken families, Sister Prejean says the biggest reward has been “visiting and praying with the victims’ families, and being with human beings who are considered the scum of the earth and having the privilege of them looking at your face at the last moment of their lives.”

Making a difference
Interview by Rosie Hoban for Madonna magazine. See www.madonnamagazine.com.au

Many of us know the award-winning film, Dead Man Walking. In August, the opera based on the story had its Australian premiere, and Sr Helen Prejean, author of the original book, attended the opening. Rosie Hoban spoke with her.

Catholic nun Helen Prejean says walking alongside a man to his execution breaks your heart and weakens the spiritc for a while. It can paralyse or galvanise a person, she says. After witnessing the legal execution of convicted murderer Patrick Sonnier in the 1980s she vomited, but knew at that moment that she had to do more than just feel sickened by the injustice of capital punishment.

Fortunately for many Americans on death row, Sr Helen’s walk to the execution room has strengthened her for the long fight. Since 1981, when she first befriended Patrick Sonnier, a man on death row, she has walked beside five men, comforting and befriending them and offering spiritual guidance in the weeks before their execution and in the hour of their greatest need. As well, she has supported the families of the victims who were murdered by the death row inmates.

Sister Helen, who joined the Sisters of St Joseph of Medaille in Louisiana in 1957, began her prison ministry in 1981 when she dedicated her life to the poor of New Orleans. While living in the St Thomas housing project, she began writing to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers, sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. Upon Sonnier’s request, Sister Helen visited him many times as his spiritual advisor. During this time she witnessed the agony and brutality of the Louisiana execution process and wrote Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States.

The book is Sr Helen’s account of men sentenced to death in the United States. It explores the issue from every angle, including the brutality of the convicted man’s crime, the suffering of the victims, the agony of the victims’ family and the brutality of the judicial system in the 38 American states which still use the death penalty.

Importantly, the book follows the spiritual journey of Sonnier and Sr Helen herself. Dead Man Walking became a bestseller, and in 1993 it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It was number one on the New York Times Best Seller List for 31 weeks and has been translated into ten different languages. In 1996. Dead Man Walking was made into an Academy Award-winning film, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn

Sr Helen was in Australia in August to attend the Australian premiere of the opera, Dead Man Walking, based on the novel. The State Opera of South Australia performed the opera its first performance outside the United States where it had been a great success.

Since the overwhelming success of the book and the film Sr Helen has become a human rights campaigner, speaking out not just against the death penalty, but on a range of issues including the detention of asylum seekers in Australia and reconciliation with Aborigines. The common element in all social injustice, she says, is the loss of a person’s human dignity.

Sr Helen was in Australia when one of the men accused of the Bali bombings received the death penalty. She watched on television as people in Australia raised champagne glasses to celebrate the sentencing. She also read Australian newspapers where polls showed some support for the death penalty.

‘ Australians must reject the mutterings by politicians about the death penalty’, she warns. ‘People around the world must strive to uphold the dignity of life of the guilty as well as the rights of the innocent and there is no dignity in executing a person.
‘ It is a struggle working out what to do with the guilty, but once you begin to discuss who should get the death sentence, then as a society you descend into a moral quagmire.’

Sr Helen cited one US state which has the death penalty for those who commit heinous crimes. This has caused outrage among some parents who say their child’s murder was heinousc¹sufficient for the death penaltyc¹and yet the killer was not sentenced to death. People are comparing how horrendous various murders are, weighing up their own pain and suffering against someone else’s in order to get the killer executed.

Sr Helen is also sceptical of the role of politicians in debates about the death penalty. In the US, when governors and district attorneys are running for office, the death penalty rates increase as it become a subject of political argy bargy.

‘ We place ourselves in a God-like position of saying who should get killed and then someone has to do the killing. The guards on death row, the strap-down team in the execution room, what happens to all these people?

‘ Jesus said it all when he said “The last shall be first”, and that is at the heart of why I oppose the death penalty. It degrades life to the maximum. Just imaginec¹you are put in a very small room and told that at such and such a date someone will come and take you to a room and kill you’, she says.

For years, Sr Helen has listened as people berate her for taking the side of the murderer and ignoring the victim. They could not be more wrong. She founded Survive, a victim’s advocacy group in New Orleans, and she is an honorary member of the US-based Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation and much of her time is spent supporting these families and praying with them.
While Sr Helen spends much of her time travelling the world, she is still dedicated to her prison work. During a visit to Adelaide she visited a prisoner at the request of one of the man’s supporters. She also visited the father of a young person killed by the bombings in Bali. It is a ministry that continues to enrich her life, and her energy to travel the world speaking comes from a deep sense that she is doing what God wants her to do.

‘ I am sustained by prayer and by listening to the Spirit of God and God’s capacity to be present in love. I spend time in prayer and I celebrate liturgy each Sunday with an Afro-American community. And, importantly, I live in a faith community in New Orleans with other sisters’, Sr Helen says.

‘ One of the other great opportunities of this work is that I get to travel and talk to people and hopefully to awaken something in them. I see them responding to the truth because a lot of people do not have the real information told to themc¹they get sound bites from the media and political lines from politicians looking for votes. And in some cases I get to help people deal with their outrage. When I hear about something horrible that a person has done to another person, I feel that outrage too. If I didn’t feel it I wouldn’t be able to sit with the victim’s family and help them with their pain.

‘ For me it is a privilege to be working in prisons with these men. It is a privilege to be with a human being as they face the most difficult time of their life. It is then that I say to my God, “Of all the things I could have done, this is the thing that is making a difference”.’

Sr Helen’s second book, The Machinery of Death, will be published in early 2004. She plans to visit Australia again in September next year.

Famed nun keeps promise to priest
'Dead Man Walking' author gives rousing speech at rally
by Mick Walsh
Staff Writer

Sister Helen Prejean on Saturday kept a promise she made to fellow Louisianian Roy Bourgeois 13 years ago: She took part in the annual SOA Watch demonstration outside the gates of Fort Benning.

Sister Helen, a staunch opponent of the death penalty and author of "Dead Man Walking," was on a walk of her own -- from Florida's death house in Starke to Georgia's in Jackson -- the very weekend in 1990 when the first protest against the School of the Americas was conducted.

" I told him I'd try to make the next one," she said Saturday, soon after delivering a rousing 10-minute speech to a crowd ranging from college students to World War II veterans. "But the opportunity simply didn't exist until now."

The 64-year-old Roman Catholic nun, who is based in New Orleans but whose stage is the world, condemned the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, calling it "a killing machine" and comparing it to government-sanctioned executions.

" I'm a critic of the death penalty," she said, her voice a bit rough after having to shout her speech over piped-in noise from Fort Benning, "but I don't prioritize my objections. If I perceive something as injustice, I address it."

During her speech, she quoted from a letter by actress Susan Sarandon, who played Sister Helen in the 1995 film "Dead Man Walking" and who won a Best Actress Oscar for the portrayal.

" I am Susan Sarandon," laughed the nun, "and she's me. The only way you can tell us apart is by our wardrobes." Sister Helen was dressed in faded jeans, a pink sweatshirt and a crucifix hanging from her neck.

The diminutive sister, who began her prison ministry in 1981, may have a following as big as Sarandon's.

" I came all the way down from Atlanta just to get my picture made with Sister Helen," said college student Sean Massey. And he did. Many old friends from New Orleans and its Loyola University were in the audience.

She passed out hugs and autographs to anyone who asked.

" I just love this crowd of people," she said, looking down Benning Road.

" You know, these people get it. You can feel it. They know what is important in life. They know the truth when they hear it, and they're prepared to act on it. I'm particularly heartened to see so many young people here."

The tireless nun, who is wrapping up her second book, showed she was nifty on her feet, clapping and tapping as the hip hop group Kuuma Lynx performed on the stage. This came just two days after she traveled from her home to the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana to visit death row inmates.

" I really don't have much free time at all anymore," she said. "My speaking engagements are booked a year in advance. But I'm certainly happy I was able to come down here this weekend and lend my voice to the real heroes of this movement, the men and women who suffered so much abuse from soldiers trained at this school."

A MESSAGE FROM SUSAN SARANDON TO CITIZENS PROTESTING THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS
November 2003

I so wish I could join you in person in your protest at the School of the Americas. Every year I look at the possibility of attending, and this year I almost made it, except for a last-minute turn of events, which happens fairly often in my life. But just know that I’m trying to get to Fort Benning and one day I will make it. I am heartened to hear that large numbers of people, including many young people, participate in this event. By participating in this moral face-off with the School of the Americas, you are doing what Mahatma Gandhi urged us to do: to unmask what is evil and then to actively resist it. As the poet Rilke said, “More is required than being swept along.” Make no mistake about it. Your standing up for the true, non-violent, democratic ideals of our country is an act of patriotism, and you have my deepest respect.

September 11 was a nightmare and a tragedy for all of us. I lost one of my dear friends in that attack, and our three children suffered trauma for weeks after the bombing. Never had tragedy struck so close to home. I am still horrified and stunned at the violent taking of 3,000 innocent lives that day, and I don’t have words strong enough to condemn its brutality. But are there, perhaps, spiritual lessons we might learn from that attack? Might one lesson be that for the first time we Americas understand what it means to lose loved ones and have them referred to as “collateral damage” of a greater war. Latin American camposinos, Vietnam villagers, and Afghan families, and the people of Iraq understand all too well what it means to be “collateral damage” – all of them invaded by the U.S. or killed by brutal dictators and their death squads with support from the U.S. But what bothers me most about the response of our politicians to the 9/11 attack is the shameless way they prey on people’s fears to justify their venal little wars. By now, many Americans are waking up to the fact that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was driven, not by a genuine desire to liberate the Iraqi people, but by venal motives of access to rich oil reserves and multi-million dollar construction contracts.

Thank you for letting me add my words to your witness today. I first learned about SOA when Father Roy Bourgeois asked me to narrate his documentary, “SOA, School of Assassins.” My eyes were opened simply from reading the script. Like every other U.S. citizen, I needed someone to teach me how to unmask the atrocities that go on behind these walls – all in the name of defending our country, all in the name of spreading democratic ideals throughout the world.

Thank you, Father Roy, for your 20 years of steadfast witness to the truth about SOA. It is because of you that such huge numbers of us gather here today.

Next year I hope to come in person to this great event, (I hope we won’t need to have an event next year, that the place will be shut down) but if and when I do come, please watch that you don’t get me confused with Sister Helen Prejean, who has been known on occasion to try to act like me. But I have to admit that at least on one other occasion I’ve been know to try and act like her, too. Here’s a hint to help you distinguish us: she’s the one who wears glasses. Her taste in fashion designers also tends to differ a tad from my taste. Keep humor alive. Along with truth and community, it’s our best sustenance – and the sure sign of a graced and transformed life.

NO to the Death Penalty
International Campaign

Two local churches will be lit up outside and people will lead a candlelight prayer vigil to witness as part of the International Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty AND to Support Healing for Victims’ Families. The witness and candlelight prayer vigil will take place on Human Rights Day, Wednesday, December 10, 2003. The sites are Mother of God Church in Covington, KY at 7:00 p.m. and Holy Cross-Immaculata Church in Mt. Adams, KY at 8:00 p.m. The two sites are visible from land and water in the area. Participants are asked to bring candles.

Locally (and eventually nationally) this is an initiative of Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ (Dead Man Walking) and her community, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille who are based in Cincinnati. Sr. Ruth Kettman, CSJ is the local organizer for Kentucky and Ohio.

The International Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty includes groups such as the Moratorium Campaign, Amnesty International and The Community of Sant’Egidio which began in Rome in 1968, in the period following the Second Vatican Council. (Today it is a movement of lay people and has more than 40,000 members, dedicated to evangelization and charity, in Rome, Italy and in more than 60 countries throughout the world.) This Campaign has 145 involved countries and has collected over 4,500,000 signatures.

During the Millennium Year Celebration in Rome, Italy, Sant’Egidio Community and others promoted “

.” The Colosseum – site of terror and bloodshed in imperial Rome - was illuminated with bright yellow-gold light for two days each time an execution anywhere in the world was suspended or commuted, or a nation abolished capital punishment. The Colosseum was lit up 18 times in the year 2000. In addition to commutations and the moratorium on executions in Illinois and the Phillipines, four countries abolished the death penalty. They are: Ivory Coast, Bermuda, Turkmenistan and Albania. Check out: www.santegidio.org

The number of abolitionist countries has more than tripled in the past 30 years. There were 21 in 1970. There were 76 in 2002. The number of abolitionist countries by law or in practice is 111. The number of retentionist countries is 84.

On the eve of the Jubilee year, John Paul II, who has frequently intervened personally to try to prevent executions, stated. “The Great Jubilee is an excellent opportunity to promote in the world ever more mature forms of respect for the life and dignity of every person. I therefore renew my appeal to all leaders to reach an international consensus on the abolition of the death penalty, since “cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2267).”

(Sr. Ruth Kettman, CSJ Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille 859-283-6268)

Too often, justice lost in drive for vengeance
By Joanie Flatt
Special for The Republic

For years I've wrestled with the question of capital punishment. On one hand, I've cheered when juries meted out the ultimate punishment for perpetrators of the most heinous crimes. On the other hand, doubt has gnawed at my gut. How can a society that makes it a crime to take a human life then turn around and take yet another life in vengeance? Can that truly be the right thing to do?

When Sister Helen Prejean looked me in the eye this week and asked, "The key moral question is . . . do we deserve to kill?" I finally got it.

"I'm facing a culture that legitimizes murder as vengeance," she said. "And that is not right." I believe her.
Sister Helen Prejean is a passionate, perky little nun who grew up in Baton Rouge and spent years ministering to poor black residents in St. Thomas, a New Orleans housing project.

At the suggestion of a friend, she wrote a letter to a death row inmate, chosen at random by the leader of the Prison Coalition in New Orleans. That one letter led Sister Helen to a series of experiences that she shared with the world through her book, and subsequent movie, Dead Man Walking.

Sister Helen's pen pal, Patrick Sonnier, was executed by Louisiana. While he participated in vicious criminal behavior, he was executed for two murders he did not commit.

Today, Sister Helen ministers to death row inmates and families of murder victims. She is a vocal leader of the national and international movements to place a moratorium on capital punishment. And this week, she turned me into a believer.
I ask Gov. Napolitano and the Arizona Legislature to adopt a moratorium on capital punishment in Arizona.
Legislatures in half of the 38 states with the death penalty have considered, or are now considering, stopping executions with a moratorium - or abolishing the death penalty outright. It's time for Arizona to do the same.
Why am I now convinced that capital punishment is wrong?

Because there are people on death row who are innocent. This is a fact. A hundred-plus defendants have been plucked from death row in the past two decades. That's about one death sentence reversed for every eight executions. These innocent people collectively lost a total of 800 years of their lives on death row for crimes they didn't commit.
We need a moratorium to allow the courts to find and release every death row inmate who is innocent.
The Innocence Protection Act, which is currently before Congress and which we should all support, would ensure all convicted offenders have the opportunity to prove their innocence through DNA testing. It would also help states provide competent legal services to criminals facing the death penalty.

The concept that the death penalty deters crime is flawed. States that do not have the death penalty have an average murder rate that is actually lower than states that have the death penalty.

Most of the brutal murders that are committed are either committed in the "heat of the moment" or by mentally deranged monsters like Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson. Give them life in prison with no option for parole.

According to some studies, the death penalty actually costs more than life in prison. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, "Various state governments estimate that a single death-penalty case from arrest to execution ranges from $1 million up to $7 million. Cases resulting in life imprisonment average around $500,000 each, including the cost of incarceration."

We should adopt a moratorium on executions because, nationally, the death penalty is racially biased. Those who kill White people are four times more likely to get the death penalty than those who kill people of color
.
The death penalty is also economically biased. People who can't afford good legal representation are more likely to get the death penalty than those who can pay for experienced capital punishment attorneys. If you're wealthy and you kill, you'll likely get life imprisonment. If you're poor, we'll probably kill you.

According to the web site info@moratoriumcampaign.org, there are 124 inmates on death row in Arizona. Four of these committed their crimes when they were kids. Some of these inmates are mentally retarded. Some are likely innocent.
As Sister Helen explains, murdering the murderer will not bring a loved one back. "Outrage is a legitimate moral reaction (to the loss of a loved one). Violence causes outrage in us because we value human life."

When she looked me in the eye and asked, "The key moral question is do we deserve to kill?" I finally got it.
(Copyrighted by The Arizona Republic, November 1, 2003)

Joanie Flatt is a Scottsdale resident and owner and president of Flatt & Associates Ltd., an East Valley public relations and public affairs firm. She can be reached at flattreaders@aol.com.

Heroes
by Dianne Abshire

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes; some come willingly, some by accident, and some with great reluctance. But, one thing that ties all heroes together is their sense of duty and responsibility to a greater cause. They have found the courage and conviction to stand for what they believe is right. They have given their lives to something bigger than themselves. ---- years ago, Bill Pelke found it in his heart to forgive a teenage girl for the murder of his 85 year old grandmother. Not only did he forgive this girl for what she’d done, but he took it upon himself to work diligently to save this girl from the death chamber, and he succeeded, having her sentence commuted from a death sentence to 60 years. Bill promised that if he were successful in saving young Paula Cooper’s life, he would take

every opportunity given him to speak out against capital punishment, and he has kept his promise. He now travels across the country speaking out against the death penalty whenever possible, attending rallies, marches, and participating in other various speaking engagements. Bill is a hero. His compassion and forgiveness has given him the courage to stand up and speak out against what he believes is a huge injustice. His courage allows him to relive his beloved grandmother’s murder over and over again as he tells the story of his grief and his loss. His desire to educate his audience against the evils of capital punishment gives him the strength to tell his story and express to them the peace and closure given by forgiveness. It is now his mission. Over 20 years ago, a young nun became a pen pal to a death row inmate in Angola, Louisiana. Sister Helen Prejean eventually became the “spiritual advisor” to a man who she would eventually watch be executed. The experience disturbed her so deeply that she stopped the car as she was driven away after the execution and she vomited. The experience changed her life. Sister Helen never expected to become a leading figure in the fight to end the death penalty, but she now believes that her ministry is part of a divine plan.

In a recent Ohio newspaper interview she said, "I’m a person that is trying to live out of faith. I really see God’s power behind this. I was a spiritual adviser to a man on death row in Louisiana in the early ’80s when everybody and their cat believed in executions, and then I watched this man, Patrick Sonnier, be put to death in the electric chair, and after him I accompanied four others, and I wrote the book." A second book is now being written by Sister Helen, and it’s due out next summer. Tentatively titled “Machinery and Death,” it focuses on the execution of two other men who she watched die, and who she feels died innocent. When Sister Helen speaks, she pulls no punches. She speaks with knowledge and conviction, talking about the disproportionate number of minorities sentenced to death, and she puts the blame squarely on ineffective counsel and ambitious prosecutors. The death penalty "corrupts everybody it touches," she teaches. It corrupts the politicians who win votes by using capital punishment as evidence that they’re “tough on crime.” It makes false promises of closure to the victim’s families who wait years for an execution only to find that this second death only leaves them empty and unfulfilled. She speaks the truth that we all know----that ambitious prosecutors can win convictions by withholding evidence and distorting the facts, and then turn a blind eye when someone innocent is convicted and subsequently executed. She tells her stories without flinching. Her fascinating tales of the human condition are interwoven with stark realities and peppered with death penalty statistics—she educates on the sly.

"You have to show people, you have to tell them stories, you have to put faces on all this and take it out of the realm of the abstract," Sister Helen said. Sister Helen is a hero, too. Her privileged childhood as the daughter of an attorney did little to prepare herself for serving a mission in the inner city, or her eventual crusade to abolish the death penalty. But she has taken on this role without hesitation and with a tireless energy that makes her radiant and looking much younger than her 64 years. Like Bill Pelke, she relives the pain of the six executions she witnessed every time she speaks of them. It is her mission. When dedicated abolitionists like Bill Pelke and Sister Helen Prejean join forces, amazing things happen. Other heroes join together with them, and a good idea turns into a reality. Through the dedication and hard work of these few amazing individuals, the truth of the inequality and injustice of our legal system is being spread. Myths surrounding the death penalty are being corrected. The Journey of Hope…from violence to healing is one such amazing event. October of 2003 finds over 20 members from all over the country traveling across Ohio for 17 days, speaking at schools, churches, rallies, and before civic organizations in both small towns and in large cities. These “storytellers” share their experiences, their grief, and their healing with anyone who will listen. The speakers are both members of murder victim’s families as well as death row family members. Some have national recognition, and some live a private life in obscurity until called to tell their tale. They are the silent heroes. Juan Melendez, the 24th man released from Florida’s death row due to a wrongful conviction, is a hero, too. He stands among the Journey participants as a testament to everything that is wrong with the system, and he receives enthused applause as he introduces himself. As sure as Bill Pelke and Sister Helen relive their pain when they tell their story, Juan surely must relive his pain of over 17 years on death row every time he speaks. When talking about the guys left behind, he quietly asks, “How’s everyone doing?” And, he asks how things are going---what’s new and what’s changed?

All these people, from all walks of life, have united together for the sole purpose of educating and demonstrate that forgiveness is the best method of healing. These ordinary people have come into their extraordinary roll as hero by choice and by accident, but together they work towards the same goal, and that is to promote an end to the cycle of violence. They teach that execution done in the name of the state is purely done for revenge and only creates more victims, not closure. We all have the ability to be a hero. We all have the ability and the obligation to be a part of the solution if we are able. Whether we are on the inside or the outside, we all are given the opportunity to do small things to educate others and to take on an active part in being compassionate and forgiving---with each other, and with ourselves. Together we can work for change, and together we can help heal each other by promoting forgiveness. Our lives depend on it.

Dead Man Walking
The Journey of Dead Man Walking
by Jake Heggie
Article and photo credited to Michigan Opera Theatre

The grateful young composer of Dead Man Walking describes how his opera found him, and where it has taken him.

It's hard to believe now, but when Terrence McNally and I first met in New York in 1996 to discuss a possible opera collaboration, it was a comic work that the producer had in mind. Something light and celebratory for the millennium. Being almost completely unknown as a composer and having this incredible opportunity placed before me, I was hardly in a position to disagree with the general director of the San Francisco Opera, Lotfi Mansouri. Terrence, however, was. And he did. He could not have been less interested in such a project and he was too busy to consider anything else at the time. He was moving to a new apartment, getting ready to film Love! Valour! Compassion!, and in the midst of writing other shows.

With Terrence's famous passion for opera and my devotion to composing for the operatic voice, Lotfi believed adamantly that this collaboration must happen. So he removed the mandate of comedy and asked us to find a story that would inspire both of us. The field was wide open. My admiration for Terrence's work and his fantastic instincts for theater led me to trust that he would come up with a great idea. I had no expectation what that might be. I just hoped it would be something that I, too, would feel moved and inspired by.

In June of 1997, Terrence arrived in San Francisco. The two of us sat down to lunch and he brought out a list of ten ideas, only one of which he really wanted to do. He wouldn't tell me which it was. He started reading the list.

"Dead Man Walking."

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I started to hear music at once. I told him to stop. This was the right story. He asked if he could please continue reading the list, and he did. To this day, I can't remember a single other idea he read because I was already figuring out how Dead Man Walking would sound in the opera house. What kind of architecture would the music have? What kinds of musical motifs? The range of characters and their transformations was incredible. There would be ample room for large ensembles and great possibilities to build emotional tension, to find transcendence in musical terms. Terrence and I talked about it non-stop for the next two days. Lotfi was thrilled and went to work immediately to secure the rights and look for funding. To make sure I had what I needed to work, Lotfi made me San Francisco Opera's first composer-in-residence.

Why was the story so compelling to us? Sister Helen Prejean, a Louisiana nun, becomes the spiritual advisor to a convicted murderer on death row and accompanies him to his execution. She experiences a journey most of us cannot begin to imagine and becomes a witness to a level of grief and anguish that even she had not imagined. Parents. Children. Families. Torn apart. And in the midst of all the grief, tragedy, loss, and anger, it is love that transcends, unites, and redeems. Very operatic stuff.

Terrence and I both felt strongly that we wanted our opera to be a contemporary American drama. Dead Man Walking is a story of our time, but it has a sense of timelessness to it. It is a distinctly American story, but it has universal resonance. The drama is such that it makes sense for people to sing and it is large enough to fill an opera house, yet it is incredibly intimate. It is a story that takes us deep into the most difficult struggles we can experience as human beings. It takes us to places that only get intensified with music. The more we talked about it, the more it seemed like an opera just waiting for the music.

We were determined not to fall into a few obvious traps. As much as we admired and respected Sister Helen and her non-fiction book Dead Man Walking, this was not going to be a documentary or a biography. It would also not be a "soap-box" opera trying to push a political agenda. And we did not want to try to recreate Tim Robbins' brilliant movie, either. We would go from the book, changing and adapting it to work specifically for the opera stage. Our goal was to tell the story honestly and without any preaching - to go with Sister Helen on her journey to that difficult place and to let people make up their own minds.

Sister Helen was in complete accord on all of these points. Supportive and enthusiastic from the start, she generously offered us flat-out permission to do whatever we needed to do to her story so that it would work on the opera stage, with only one mandate: it had to remain a story of redemption. Right before the announcement of the project, in March of 1998, Sister Helen called me and said in a very thick Louisiana accent, "When they called and told me that San Francisco wanted my permission to make an opera out of Dead Man Walking, I said, 'Well of COURSE we're gonna make an opera out of Dead Man Walking!' But, Jake, I don't know boo-scat about opera, so you're gonna have to educate me."

Why is Sister Helen such an operatic character? Against the enormous background of the prison system, death row, and a man convicted of a monstrous crime, there is this one small woman and her faith: her belief in the individual dignity of every person on this earth. She travels this path as a kind of "everyman," and it is easy for us to go along with her: from the security of working with children in the projects, to meeting a convicted killer, then his family, then the families of the murder victims, to an execution chamber, all propelling her to a place of spiritual crisis and ultimate resolution. At first, Sister Helen seems like one of your gal pals with a great sense of humor and a zest for life. When the journey begins, neither we, nor she, are aware of what incredible bravery and power there is inside her when she is tested. But I think it puts all of us to the test. How much could I take? How far could I go? How strong am I? What are my convictions?

It is this that makes all of the characters in the story operatic, for they're all regular folks thrown into a tornado, all being tested, strained, and pushed to the edge. As for the concept of capital punishment, the story puts a human face on it and takes it out of the abstract. It's no longer a comfortable question one can consider while watching television or reading the paper. Real people, real lives are at stake at every turn in this story.

Terrence told me from the beginning that he was not a librettist, he was a playwright. His intention was to write a play and to create language and situations that would inspire music. He recognized that an opera is about the music and that he would do whatever he could to serve that. If I had a musical idea that was taking me in a certain direction, I should follow it. If his words didn't work for me, I was free to add my own and check with him later. It's about the most generous and gratifying collaboration that a composer could hope for. Another goal in the creation of the opera was to explore a medium that was neither traditional theater nor traditional opera, but a real combination of the two: a music drama, an opera musical, opera theater, or perhaps finally, American opera theater.

For my part, I was clear that my musical language would not be overly complex. My compositional voice is based primarily on direct emotional portraits of characters. I wanted to create clear melodic and rhythmic motifs to propel a constantly moving tide of emotion with lyricism, without alienating the characters or the audience. The architecture of the piece was clear, too, from the start. A building of layers throughout the first act - a long crescendo to the point where Sister Helen faints from exhaustion, overwhelmed by the emotional intensity and the demands being made upon her. The second act, a gradual stripping away of layers to reveal the essence of what is at stake in the story: life and love. Terrence wrote the first act in four days at the end of March 1998. I started composing just before my 37th birthday (March 31) and was finished by August 1999. The premiere took place on October 7, 2000.

Since the premiere, the opera has been scheduled by ten international companies. NYCO's production, by director Leonard Foglia and designer Michael McGarty, offers new insights into the drama. And new casts will bring different perspectives to the roles. But Sister Helen's compelling journey continues to capture the imagination, and our opera, hopefully, continues to take people right along with her.

Jake Heggie is a San Francisco-based composer.

Dead Man Walking
Article credited to Michigan Opera Theatre

ACT ONE
In Louisiana, one night in the early 1980s, two brothers, Joseph and Anthony De Rocher, rape and murder a teenage couple near a lake. Both are convicted: Anthony is sentenced to life in prison, while Joseph receives the death penalty.

Many months later, Sister Helen Prejean, a young nun who works with children in a poor neighborhood, has become Joseph's pen pal. Joseph asks her to visit him, and she agrees. After being discouraged by her friend, Sister Rose, Helen makes the long drive to the prison, unsure what she will find there. She is met with an angry greeting from Father Grenville, the prison chaplain, who warns her that a prison is no place for a woman. The warden, George Benton, warns her that Joseph is remorseless but will likely ask her to be his spiritual advisor. He walks her through death row to meet Joseph, who tests her patience and commitment, and ultimately asks her to be his spiritual advisor. Helen agrees.

Helen accompanies Joseph's mother, Mrs. Patrick De Rocher, to the pardon board hearing, where the mother pleads for her son's life. Helen is confronted by the parents of the murdered teens, Owen and Kitty Hart and Howard and Jade Boucher, who are outraged that a nun would console a murderer and never bother to offer comfort to them. The verdict comes back and the appeal is denied. Helen and Joseph have another meeting in which she insists that Joseph admit his guilt and ask for forgiveness. But Joseph remains remorseless and refuses to accept responsibility for the crime. Helen, feeling ill, retires to a waiting room, where she feels overwhelmed by the conflicting forces confronting her.

ACT TWO
Joseph is told that his execution date will be August 4, at midnight. Alone in his cell, he contemplates his impending and remembers the crime he committed. Simultaneously, Sister Helen has a nightmare in which she sees the murdered teenagers and wakes with a scream. Sister Rose comes to console her and tells her that if she is really determined to help Joseph, she must first find a sense of personal forgiveness and peace toward him.

Helen's next meeting with Joseph is on the evening of his execution. Discovering mutual interests, they are surprised to recognize each other as friends rather than just nun and prisoner. Joseph's family arrives for a final visit, and his mother remembers him as a carefree little boy. Sister Helen is then left alone to contemplate what lies ahead of her. As witnesses begin to arrive for the execution, Helen is once again confronted by the parents of the murdered teenagers. Owen lags behind the others, expressing his grief to Helen and asking her to visit him.

After Joseph is prepared for execution, Helen is left alone with him for a final visit. She tells him that she has visited the crime scene and begs him to confess to her what happened that night. With only minutes remaining, Joseph finally confesses and wonders if anybody could ever forgive him. Helen assures him that he is a child of God, and that he will find redemption. She asks him to look at her face during the execution, for she will be the face of Christ -- the face of love -- for him. The warden and chaplain arrive, and the walk to the death chamber begins, accompanied by a recitation of the Lord's Prayer. After Joseph is strapped to the gurney for his lethal injection, he asks the parents' forgiveness. His last words are to Sister Helen: "I love you." As Joseph is executed, Sister Helen sings a hymn over his body.

Of Many Things
By George M. Anderson

Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, often stays at America House when she comes to New York. She was here last fall for the opening of the opera based on her book, which recounts her experiences as spiritual advisor to men on death row. What we spoke of, though, was not so much the opera, but her present and future writing projects. Her next book, to be published in 2003 by Random House, is tentatively called Impossible Burden: Eyewitness to the Death Penalty.

Like her first book, it is based on her experiences accompanying prisoners waiting to be put to death. The two who figure in it are Dobie Williams, executed in Louisiana in 1999, and Joseph O'Dell, a Virginia prisoner put to death two years earlier. Sr. Prejean's accompaniment of Mr. O'Dell led, she said, to a personal interview with Pope John Paul II, who appealed on his behalf. The book's title, Impossible Burden, refers to the many who bear the! burden of being involved in death-penalty procedures. The last chapter, she observed, has been the most challenging to write. There she describes the whole shift in the teaching of the Catholic Church, a shift that resulted in an eventual change in the catechism itself, which all but excludes the use of capital punishment.

Prayer, Sister Helen said, figured greatly in the writing of her new book. In fact, working on it has been what she called "an exercise in prayer, because you have to come to that stillness, that waiting, allowing the deepest truth to surface." Although it was what she termed a grace to dive deeply into the personal narrative of the two executed men, she emphasized that it was a struggle because of the many issues that had to be analyzed. "There's also a need to move to a deeper level of compassion for all the people involved in death-penalty situations"a compassion that in itself can weigh heavily on the human ! spirit. She gave the example of jurors who must decide whether a fello w human being will live or die.

The book as completed thus far was written over the past three summers at a Cheyenne reservation in Montana. A Franciscan sister had invited her to the reservation, an arrangement that allowed Sister Prejean to work undisturbed in a simple room in a trailer. At the same time, she was able to explore various aspects of Native American spirituality. "Their whole approach is that the spirit of God the creator is everywhere, and so you begin to look at nature in a new way." Her experiences on the reservation are "probably going to be another unfolding book," she said.

That, though, stands farther in the future. The book that lies immediately ahead, after Impossible Burden, concerns her presence among women in Nicaragua, to be published by Orbis Books. Its provisional title is The Women of Batahola: Struggles of Survival and Adventure. Batahola is a poor barrio in Managua where several sisters of her congregation the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medailleare working. But having been translated into dozens of languages and made into a film, Dead Man Walking is likely to remain her most famous book. Now, she said, Tim Robbins, director of the film version, is converting it into a play, to be produced locally by community and college theaters around the country. Its influence on people's views of the death penalty will thereby be expanded still further.

Sister Prejean continues to travel extensively, speaking at gatherings in this country, as well as in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. Despite the intensity of her writing and speaking activities, however, she has continued her accompaniment work. After Dobie Williams was executed three years ago, she began to visit another condemned prisoner in Louisiana, Manuel Ortiz. He has been on death row for 11 years. Convinced of his innocence, she predicts that he will be exonerated. The exoneration of m! ore and more death-row prisoners is adding impetus to advocates' efforts to end capital punishment.

George M. Anderson, S.J., an associate editor of America, is author of With Christ in Prison.

Copyright (c) 2003 by America Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Nun tireless in bid to end death penalty
Sister is finishing 2nd book
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

Sister Helen Prejean has written "only one little book," as she puts it. But that little book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, caused a big stir in the national debate over capital punishment.

The book spent 31 weeks on the New York Times’ best-seller list and was made into a major Hollywood release in 1995, earning four Academy Award nominations and a Best Actress Oscar for Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen.

Now the 64-year-old nun is finishing up her second book, expected to be published next summer, as she continues her crusade against the death penalty.

The feisty and charismatic nun, who will give two talks in Toledo on Friday as part of the Erase the Hate campaign, said her new book describes her experiences in counseling two death-row inmates, Dobie Williams of Louisiana and Joseph O’Dell of Virginia.

"The working title is Machinery and Death , in which I tell the story of two people that I believe were innocent that I accompanied to executions," Sister Helen said in a recent interview from her office in New Orleans.

The nun has been crusading tirelessly against the death penalty since 1981, when she began her prison ministry by becoming a pen pal and then spiritual adviser to Patrick Sonnier, on death row at Louisiana’s Angola State Prison for the murder of two teenagers.

Sister Helen never expected to become a leading figure in the fight to end the death penalty, but she believes that her ministry is part of a divine plan.

"I’m a person that is trying to live out of faith," said Sister Helen, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille. "I really see God’s power behind this because I’m a Catholic nun. I was a spiritual adviser to a man on death row in Louisiana in the early ’80s when everybody and their cat believed in executions, and then I watched this man, Patrick Sonnier, be put to death in the electric chair, and after him I accompanied four others, and I wrote the book."

Dead Man Walking captured the nation’s heart and mind, she said, because "I tried to be very truthful in it." She balanced her story by not only giving the condemned man’s side but also capturing the pain and misery of the victims’ families.

Sister Helen, who freely cites numerous statistics about the death penalty and speaks with passion and a lilting southern accent, is set in her views but recognizes that capital punishment is not a black-and-white issue.

"Most people do struggle with this issue. They feel ambivalent about it," she said. "You know they’re horrified over crime, they’re outraged, they say that a person deserves to die. Then, on the other hand, they know they can barely trust the government to fill a pothole, let alone decide which one of its citizens should die."

But the death penalty "corrupts everybody it touches," she said.

Prosecutors eyeing a judicial position can put a death-penalty conviction ahead of other concerns, even if it means withholding evidence or distorting the facts, in order to look tough on crime, Sister Helen claimed.

Others tainted by capital punishment include politicians who use the anguish of a victim’s family in order to win votes; wardens who bear the burden of making sure that executions are carried out; prison workers who strap the inmates down and afterward have trouble eating or sleeping, and victims’ families who await the execution of their loved one’s killer only to find it does not bring satisfaction, according to Sister Helen.

"Even [victims’ families] who believe in the death penalty, they come out of an execution and say, ‘The S.O.B. died too quick, I hope he burns in hell.’ But they realize they could have witnessed it once a week for a thousand years and it never would have brought back the person they have lost. It would never be enough. They could never watch him die enough. It’s the wrong formula. It’s the wrong solution, to think they’ll watch some person die, and then come home and the chair is not as empty any more, where their loved one used to sit."

Sister Helen said she has witnessed the emotional trauma victims’ family members endure after waiting 10 or 15 years for an execution date to be set, then mustering the inner strength to travel to the prison and take a front-row seat in the witness room, only to have the courts issue a last-minute stay. And that troubling scenario can happen time and time again, she said.

"Look what that family has gone through, waiting 10, 15 years for this moment," Sister Helen said.

It would be helpful for victims’ families if the government provided counseling, set up support groups, helped with funeral expenses, and aided with jobless assistance because grief and confusion often lead to unemployment, she said.

As for the Bible’s oft-quoted verse on capital punishment found in Exodus 21:24, "eye for eye, tooth for a tooth," the nun said it needs to be put in context.

"Sure, you can find the death penalty in the Old Testament," Sister Helen said. "In fact there were 37 crimes in the Old Testament for which you could be given the death penalty. But when the Old Testament was written, they didn’t have any prisons. They didn’t have alternatives. The punishment was death for all kinds of crimes."

In fact, she said, God was ordering restraint by calling for the punishment to fit the crime.

"Vengeance was so uncontrolled, if somebody in one village did something to somebody in another village, they would go in and wipe out the whole village," Sister Helen said.

"And what this [verse] does is restrain the violence. Only one life for one life; only an eye for an eye, only a hand for a hand."

That scripture was superseded by Jesus’ teachings, she said, including his statement in Matthew 5:38: "You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

In her talks in Toledo on Friday, at 1:30 p.m. at St. Ursula Academy and 7:30 p.m. at Lourdes College, Sister Helen said she will "take people through the journey" that she has traveled in her visits to death row, including the witnessing of six executions.

"You have to show people, you have to tell them stories, you have to put faces on all this and take it out of the realm of the abstract," Sister Helen said.

Honorary Doctor of Ministry

On June 5, 2003 S. Helen Prejean, CSJ, received an honorary Doctor of Ministry from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Thomas Berry, C.P. was also honored with an honorary Doctor of Theology at the commencement. Each year women and men are honored at the graduation ceremony of about 100 students from Masters and Doctoral programs who are witnesses to the Gospel in their particular mission to make the world a better place for all.

HELEN PREJEAN, C.S.J., Doctor of Ministry, honoris causa

A Sister of St. Joseph, Helen Prejean has worked as a director of religious education, a high school teacher, a pastoral minister to residents of an inner-city housing project, and the formation director for her own religious community. However, it is her ministry with death row inmates and victims' families that has brought her international recognition. While she has accompanied five men to their deaths by execution, she has also worked with murder victims' families and is founder of a group in New Orleans call Survive. She is an honorary member of Murder Victims for Reconciliation and serves with numerous national and international organizations working to abolish the death penalty. Her best-selling book Dead Man Walking has been translated into 12 languages and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In 1996, it was made into a motion picture by Tim Robbins, and in 2000, the San Francisco Opera Company performed the world premiere of the operatic version of the book. She has been honored worldwide for her remarkable work on behalf of those imprisoned as well as the families of victims, and in eliminating the death penalty.

THOMAS BERRY, C.P., Doctor of Theology, honoris causa

Passionist priest Thomas Berry was teaching in the Passionist seminary when his deep interest in Asian religions inspired him to study Chinese in Peking and Sanskrit at Columbia University. He later taught world religions at three eastern universities (Seton Hall, St. John's, and Fordham) and organized the Riverdale Center of Religious Research. His books include The Historical Theory of Giambattista Vico, Buddhism, Religions of India. A passion for the natural world cultivated in childhood led to his research and writing in ecology which first appeared in the Riverdale Papers. Although ecologically sensitive writers had quoted Rev. Barry for years, his book The Dream of the Earth was not published until 1988 by Sierra Club Books. It was followed byBefriending the Earth, 1991, and The Universe Story, co-authored with Brian Swimme, 1992. Holder of numerous honorary doctorates, he has been recognized by organizations as diverse as the Humane Society, The Temple of Understanding, The Catholic University of American, and the Club of Budapest.

NEWS BRIEFS Jan-15-2003
By Catholic News Service

PEOPLE
Nun pushes church for more visible role in anti-death penalty cause

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- It's been close to a decade since Sister Helen Prejean first wrote "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States" and triggered a renewed look at capital punishment nationwide. Now the Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille is hoping the Catholic Church will take the next steps toward bringing an end to the death penalty. Sister Prejean's best-selling book was made into a movie. An opera version is making the rounds of major cities, and this year Georgetown University will produce the first performances of a stage play based on the book. U.S. bishops individually and collectively have issued numerous statements of opposition to the death penalty. But a majority of American Catholics haven't accepted the church's position on capital punishment. And Sister Prejean wants the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to take a more comprehensive approach to changing that -- with an eye toward influencing society to end the practice. She spoke with CNS Jan. 14 when she was in Washington to address members of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Policy.

Catholics should hang out with poor people
U.S. Catholic Sept , 2002

It's not enough to write a few checks to charity. If Christians take their faith seriously, they must spend actual face-to-face time with people who are poor. It took Sister Helen Prejean a while to realize this, but now she believes it's as essential as going to Mass.