Sister Helen Prejean:
Living a Life of Service
Photography by Susan Spann

The author of Dead Man Walking speaks with Lasallian Youth about the death penalty — and about faith, justice, and mercy

“I'm a storyteller,” says Sister Helen Prejean.“I tell my story, the story of my journey, to wake people up and to start them on their own journey. It's a journey into knowledge, into self-knowledge and gospel knowledge. It's a journey that is really an education.”

Lasallian Youth at De La Salle High School in Concord, California, invited Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, to speak to them about her work. Sister Helen, the author of Dead Man Walking, which inspired an Oscar-winning film in 1996 and an opera in 2000, is well known for her prophetic witness against capital punishment. On Saturday, September 9, 2000, students, parents, and faculty from De La Salle and its sister school, Carondelet High School, gathered in the school's theater to meet this impassioned preacher against the death penalty.

“This education I'm talking about is learning to know the two sides of your own heart,” she told the audience. “William Faulkner said the only thing worth writing about is the conflict in the human heart. And I don't know where that conflict is more evident than in the question of capital punishment. There, our hearts definitely have two sides. And the sides really look like opposites. On one side there's the loss and pain, our outrage at crime and our thirst for justice. On the other side there's the need to give and receive mercy and forgiveness. Both are real, and we've got to be in touch with both. The cross of Jesus helps me remember that. Look at the cross. It has two arms. It stretches us out. It extends us to both sides. That's why I go to victims' families as well as to killers' families. Because they all have been wounded. Those of us who follow Jesus have got to be on both arms of that cross.”

Helen Prejean was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1939, and in 1957 joined the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Médaille. With a B.A. in English and an M.A. in religious education, she worked as a high school teacher and parish religious educator. In 1980 her religious community, clarifying its mission, made what she calls “a commitment to stand on the side of the poor,” but Sister Helen admits that she was dubious. “I resisted this recasting of my childhood faith. I didn't want to struggle with politics and economics. We were nuns, after all, not social workers.”

Whose Life Has Value?

Despite her doubts, Sister Helen joined four other Sisters living and ministering in St. Thomas, an inner-city housing project in New Orleans.“Growing up a Southern white girl on the cusp of the upper class, I had only known black people as my servants. My daddy was a lawyer; I went to private school. I never had direct experiences with poor people. Once I became involved with poor people, I began to see daily evidence that some life is valued and some life is not.”Living in St. Thomas she began to grasp that, for the poor, the violence of the street and the violence of prison are enormous, everyday facts of life. “As one Mama in St. Thomas put it, 'Our boys leave here in a police car or a hearse.'”

One day a friend asked her if she would sign up to be a pen pal to a death-row inmate. She agreed: How much trouble could it be to write a letter or two?” “I had no idea that this answer would be my passport to a strange and bizarre country. God is a mystery, but one of the definite characteristics of God is that God is sneaky.“ The man to whom she wrote, Patrick Sonnier, had been convicted of two murders. “He had no one to visit him, and the next thing I knew I was saying, 'Okay, I'll come visit you.' On the application form for visitors you have to fill in something. Patrick suggested I fill in 'spiritual advisor.' He was Catholic and I'm a Catholic nun, so it seemed okay.” Little did Sister Helen know that when execution finally comes, the spiritual advisor stays to witness it. At the end, Sister Helen was there when Sonnier was executed. She remembers, “I was scared out of my mind.”

Through her work with Sonnier and other condemned prisoners she became convinced that deadly punishment for deadly crime only makes things worse for everyone, and is a symptom of deeper societal problems. “Capital punishment is not a peripheral issue about a few criminals at the edge of society. It's connected to the three deepest wounds of our society: racism, poverty, and violence. And it doesn't help us solve any of them. It's bad for everybody. And it doesn't make us safer. We can be safe without imitating the killers. There has been a lot in the news lately about how many innocent people might be on death rows, as shown by DNA evidence and other things. And that's good. It's great to get those mistakes cleared up and to try to see to it that no more mistakes happen.”

“But the moral issue in the death penalty is not what we do about the innocent people. The issue is, What do we do about the guilty ones? Jesus Christ, whose way of life I try to follow, refused to meet hate with hate and violence with violence. I pray for the strength to be like him.”

Anything you do to advance human dignity works toward human rights, because human rights is at bottom a question of the dignity of each human being. So everything you do helps...Just your presence with a disposable or marginalized person is precious. Anywhere you can put your hand on the rope is a good place to start pulling.

“I Go Way Back with the Christian Brothers.”

Sister Helen sat down for a chat with Signs of Faith. “I go way back with the Christian Brothers. Brother Joe Porter [now deceased] and [former] Brother Don Everard were with us in Hope House in New Orleans. One of the things we did together was educating students about the lives of the poor through a program called Bridges. Serving the poor is important, but seeing the poor comes first. Because we live in a stratified society, we're separated, we don't know one another, and we're afraid of one another. Our society is segregated by class and race, and we have few ways of breaking the barriers. Even the parish church reflects that segregation. As Martin Luther King said, Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week.

“So that's what Bridges was about. We brought white kids from the suburbs to live with us. They would spend time at the welfare office, the public school, the court, the employment office, the hospital emergency room, the black Catholic parish church — the places where the poor live out their lives. They would visit a home, talk with a family, have a meal, play with the children. They were there to learn ­ to receive rather than to give — to see that whereas they have many resources and choices, the poor have few. And if they begin to ask themselves, Why are things this way? then that's the beginning of an interest in social justice, in the systems and structures that keep some people down and keep us divided.

“It's a very Lasallian activity, to go among the poor and really see what they need. It's a great educational service to students to show them that, through Lasallian Youth and Venaver programs and Bridges programs. Because you learn, as John Baptist de La Salle did, that you can't practice Christianity at arm's length. That's the incarnational aspect of Christianity. It's about personal encounter, about being really present. When you encounter the suffering, and you hear the story, then you begin to see how complex things are. As long as you're removed from it, it's tempting to stereotype and to blame. But when you know the people, you enter into the complexity.

“When you get so completely out of your familiar environment, it's like what Paul talks about in the second letter to the Philippians — the kenosis, the self-emptying. And that's when faith in God helps you so much. Faith helps you keep standing when you've left your comfort zone and you enter into the experience of other people. When you have more questions than answers. When you're overwhelmed. Faith helps you stand and helps you go on. Because faith reveals to you that you're not alone. Faith thrusts you into community. In faith and justice, there are no lone rangers. You don't ride into town and clean things up and go on your way. You work with others, and you work together, and it's a lifetime commitment.”

Questions from Lasallian Youth

After her talk, Sister Helen answered many questions from students in the audience. Two of her most striking answers are given below.

Q. What about the Bible, where it says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?

A. I'm asked that question a lot, especially by Bible-believing people. And my answer is always the same. In the Bible this phrase about taking “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” occurs only three times — and the third time is when Jesus mentions it to override it, saying 'You've heard all that, but I say to you, don't even let the sun go down on your anger.' Now, how many times is “mercy” mentioned in the Bible? Over two thousand times.

Q. What can students do about these issues, since we're too young to vote and have no political power?

A. The first thing, really, is to go on your own journey, your gospel journey, where you meet gospel truths in living people. That may come first. But if you're asking about action you can take — well, there's so much to do. If you're against the death penalty, you can volunteer in a moratorium office, circulate a petition, stand vigil during an execution, distribute information. Those are specific to the death penalty. But look — anything you do to advance human dignity works toward human rights, because human rights is at bottom a question of the dignity of each human being. So everything you do helps. Seek the company of people who care about justice. Bring help to the poor. Tutor a child. Visit a home for the elderly. Just your presence with a disposable or marginalized person is precious. Anywhere you can put your hand on the rope is a good place to start pulling.

Question:

As you read this article, what other thoughts, people or stories came to mind? Please share your ideas with us (email signs@dlsi.org); we will publish responses in future issues of Signs of Faith.