Sister Helen Prejean

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Sister Helen Prejean

• By Carmel Hall and Megan West

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Early Life

• Born on April 21, 1939
• Joined Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille in 1957
• Received a B.A. in English and Education in 1962
• Received an M.A. in Religious Education in 1973

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• One way to show remorse is just say, I am so
  sorry I killed those people. Another way to show
  remorse is with your life, what you do with your
  life

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Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille

• One of 23 congregations of the Sisters of St.
  Joseph in the United States
• Over 9,000 sisters
• Most of time spent working and living with people
• Teaching and provide spiritual support

Like the mustard seed, the smallest of all the
seeds which becomes the largest of all the plants
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Whos going to ever be close to an execution?
Its like a secret ritual.
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Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille

• When you look out into the world, do you find
  your heart drawn to its peoplethe homeless man
  at the corner, the starving family on the news,
  the elderly woman in need?
• It can be a frustrating feeling when you are
  just one wanting to reach out to a multitude in
  need

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Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille
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Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille

• Each of us, according to our talents, works to
  build spiritual bridges from the Church to the
  community, connecting rich and poor, sick and
  healthy, powerful and weak, uniting all in the
  oneness of Gods love.

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Prison Ministry

• 1981 dedicated her life to the poor of New
  Orleans
• Became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, a criminal
  on Death Row in Angola State Prison in Louisiana
• Sister Helen repeatedly visited him as a
  spiritual advisor
• Experience led Prejean to become a leading
  American advocate for abolition of the death
  penalty

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"Execution is the opposite of baptism into a
community. Baptism into a community means we are
all connected, we are all one family and you are
part of us. Execution is removing a person from
the human family, step by step, saying, "You are
no longer part of us. You are not human, like we
are, and so we can terminate you." When you hear
of the terrible things people have done, you can
say they deserve to die, but the key moral
question is "Do we deserve to kill?"
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Dead Man Walking

• Experiences with Sonnier transformed into her
  book Dead Man Walking An Eyewitness Account of
  the Death Penalty in the United States
• Nominated for Pulitzer Prize in 1993
• Translated into 10 languages

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I want the last face you see in this world to be
the face of love, so you look at me when they do
this thing. Ill be the face of love for you.
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Work to Abolish the Death Penalty

• 1993-1995 Served as National Chairperson of the
  National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
• Accompanied five men to their death by execution
• Continues her ministry counseling death row
  inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary
• Works with murder victims families
• Founded Survive a group in New Orleans dedicated
  to counseling for murder victims families

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Death Row Statistics
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Society deems poverty a stigma but those trapped
in poverty dont have choices. They cannot move
out of the whirlpool of poor education, poor
employment opportunities, and prevalence of crime
in their neighborhoods.
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Other Works

• The Death of Innocents An Eyewitness Account of
  Wrongful Executions published in December 2004
• Tells the story of Dobie Gillis Williams and
  Joseph ODell, whom she believes were innocent

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Honors

• Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, 1999,
  2000, and 2001
• 1996 Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of
  Peace Award
• the Human Rights Award from The St. Anthony
  Messenger in Padua, Italy