Sister Helen Préjean



By: Chloe Breyer
Wednesday August 20, 2008


Advance applause goes to the Democratic National Convention Committee
for its decision to include Sister Helen Prejean author of Dead Man
Walking in the historic interfaith service opening the 2008
Democratic Convention in Denver on August 24th.

Whatever you think of the death penalty, Democrats have on this
occasion avoided the interfaith milquetoast trap. Too often political
officials select the blandest brands of religious officialdom for
worship services--seeking a kind of spiritual good-house keeping seal
of approval for their policies and platforms. In so doing politicians
deprive themselves and society as a whole an important faith-based
tradition: the prophetic pain-in-the- neck.

The DNCC won't make that mistake. On August 24th Sister Helen
Prejean, long time Roman Catholic anti-death penalty social activist
will join Bishop Charles E. Blake, prelate of the Church of God in
Christ, Dr. Ingrid Maatson, President of the Islamic Society of North
American, and Rabbi Tzvi Weinreb, executive vice president of the
Orthodox Union in leading the first-ever interfaith service to open a
convention-- Republican or Democratic. Respected and learned religious
leaders all, Sister Helen Prejean makes up in scripturally- sound
social activism what she might lack in ecclesiatic ranking within her
tradition's hierarchy.

Like secular anti-death penalty activists, Sister Helen's rationales
for ending the death penalty include its racial and economic bias and
the strong likelhood of wrongful executions. Another powerful
argument grounded in Sister Helen's Roman Catholic faith is the
"collateral" damage done by the death penalty on the wardens and
corrections officials who are directly responsible for overseeing
executions. What are the spiritual costs to men and women like Texas
Warden, Jim Willett who from 1998-2001 oversaw 89 executions?

"There are times," Willet said in an award-winning NPR radio show
Witness to an Execution, "when I'm standing there, watching those
fluids flow and wonder whether what we are doing here is right. It is
something I'll be thinking about for the rest of my life." The same
program chronicled Fred Allen a member of the tie-down team in Texas'
Wall Unit who after 120 executions had a mental breakdown and retired
from his work.

Given continued popular support for the death penalty in large parts
of the United States, it may not be surprising that both Presidential
Candidates John Mcain and Barack Obama have expressed their support
for it. Let's hope both parties--not the Democrats alone--have the
courage to engage diverse religious leaders faithful who will pose
uncomfortable and untimely questions to their people and political
leaders. In this case, Sister Helen Prejean's concerns about the
spiritual impact of the death-penalty on the humanity of those who
implement it is an appropriate subject for a pre-convention
interfaith service at the Democratic National Convention and the
policy debates to follow.

http://blog. beliefnet. com/progressiver evival/2008/ 08/sister- helen-
prejean-the- death.html