A rts & E ntertainm ent Sister Prejean invokes a spirit of forgiveness for all

MEGHAN HURLEY STAFF WRITER MLH722@CABRINI EDU

Why does the world uphold only the dignity of the innocent and not the guilty? How can one human being have the power to decide if another human being should die? These were just some of the questions posed by a self-proclaimed storyteller and leading advocate for a moratorium on capital punishment.

It was standing room only as Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, spoke to around 500 people Feb. 20 in Grace Hall about her experience with inmates on death row and her campaign to put an end to the death penalty. Prejean was brought to Cabrini as the Founder’s Day speaker.

Founder’s Day celebrates the birthday and legacy of the Cabrini’s founder, Sister Ursula Infante, and the college felt that Prejean exemplified the same qualities.

“All this is, is a story about grace,” Prejean said. “Grace unfurls inside us as we need it…and we do what we are called to do.” This is how she described her journey as an advocate against capital punishment.

Prejean supports a moratorium, or suspension, of the death penalty. She took the stage with no notes or a prepared speech and captivated the audience with her humor and strong convictions. She recounted details, off the top of her head, of every inmate she had met and every victim’s family member she had met.

Prejean, a nun in the order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, started working with inmates on death row in her native Louisiana in 1981. When she first joined the order she “was not on the social justice bandwagon,” Prejean said. It took a three-day-long conference to change her mind. At the conference there was a nun speaking on social justice.

“She said, ‘Jesus preached good news to the poor…that they would be poor no longer...and then it hit me…that’s about justice,’” Prejean said.

After that, Prejean moved into one of the poorest parts of her state and worked with the poverty-stricken. It was there that she was developed, at first through letters, her first relationship with a death row inmate, whom she then visited, served as spiritual adviser for and eventually accompanied to his death.

“The protocol of death is a secret ritual that you will never see. I am a witness, and I have to tell this story,” Prejean said. Prejean’s experiences with death row inmates and capital punishment are documented in her two books, “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States” and “The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.”

Her book, “Dead Man Walking,” was turned into a movie, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Prejean was on hand through the whole filmmaking process and supports the message the film conveys. Sarandon won an academy award in 1996 for her portrayal of Prejean.

In her closing remarks about Sister Prejean, Dr Mary Laver, the director of programs for applied catholic social teaching, summed up Prejean’s speech and said, “It looks like you have given comfort to the afflicted,” but she also caused the comfortable some affliction with her call to action.

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