Helen Prejean
| Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J. | |
|---|---|
 Sister Helen Prejean in 2006 |
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| Born | April 21, 1939 Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Opposition to capital punishment |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Website | |
| http://www.prejean.org/ | |
Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., (b. April 21, 1939, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is a Roman Catholic religious sister, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, who has become a leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty.
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[edit] Death row ministry
Her efforts began in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1981. In 1982 an acquaintance asked her to correspond with convicted murderer Elmo Patrick Sonnier, located in the Louisiana State Penitentiary.[1] Sonnier was sentenced to death by electrocution. She visited Sonnier in prison and agreed to be his spiritual adviser in the months leading up to his execution. The experience gave Prejean greater insight into the process involved in executions, and she began speaking out against capital punishment. At the same time, she also founded Survive, an organization devoted to counseling the families of victims of violence.
Prejean has since ministered to many other inmates on death row and witnessed several more executions. She served as National Chairperson of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty from 1993 to 1995.
[edit] Dead Man Walking
Dead Man Walking, an autobiographical account of her relationship with Sonnier and other inmates on death row, served as the basis for a feature film, an opera, and a play. In the film, she was portrayed by Susan Sarandon, who won an Academy Award. Although Prejean herself was uncredited, she made a minor cameo as a woman in a candlelit vigil scene outside Louisiana State Penitentiary.[2]
In addition to Sonnier, the account is based on the inmate Robert Lee Willie who, with his friend Joseph Jesse Vaccaro, raped and killed 18-year-old Faith Hathaway on May 28, 1980, eight days later kidnapping a Madisonville couple from along side the Tchefuncte River in Louisiana and driving them to Alabama. They raped the 16-year-old girl, Debbie Morris (née Cuevas), who would later become the author of her book Forgiving the Dead Man Walking[3] and then stabbed and shot her boyfriend, 20-year-old Mark Brewster, leaving him tied to a tree paralyzed from the waist down.[4]
In February, 2011, Prejean donated all of her archival papers to DePaul University.[5]
[edit] Controversy surrounding Dead Man Walking
In 2005, author D.D. deVinci published Dead Family Walking which chronicles Loretta Bourque's death and centers on the trials and tribulations of the Bourque family. The book's website accuses Prejean's book of containing "questionable embellishments" and assails the Sister for her support of Sonnier.[6]
[edit] Campaigns, book, and awards
In 1999, Prejean formed Moratorium 2000, a petition drive that eventually grew into a national education campaign, The Moratorium Campaign,[7] initially staffed by Robert Jones, Theresa Meisz, and Jené O'Keefe. The organization Witness to Innocence,[8] composed of death row survivors who were convicted for crimes they did not commit, started under The Moratorium Campaign.
Prejean's second book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions was published in December 2004. In it, she tells the story of two men, Dobie Gillis Williams and Joseph O'Dell, whom she accompanied to their executions. She believes that both men were innocent. The book also examines the recent history of death penalty decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States and looks at the track record of George W. Bush as Governor of Texas.
In 1998, Prejean was given the Pacem in Terris Award, named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls on all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in Terris is Latin for "Peace on Earth."
Prejean now bases her work at the Death Penalty Discourse Network in New Orleans and spends her time giving talks across the United States and around the world.
[edit] Awards and recognition
- 1998: World Pacem in Terris Award
- 1996: Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award
[edit] References
- ^ "CHURCH NEEDS TO AID KILLERS AS WELL AS VICTIMS' FAMILIES, NUN SAYS." Chicago Tribune. January 19, 2006. Metro Chicago 8. Retrieved on September 1, 2010. "It was at St Thomas in 1982 that an acquaintance asked her to write to Elmo "Pat " Sonnier, a stranger on Death Row."
- ^ Trivia for Dead Man Walking
- ^ Forgiving the Dead Man Walking: Only One Woman Can Tell the Entire Story
- ^ LOUISIANA: A Murder, a Movie AND a Wink
- ^ [1]
- ^ Dead Family Walking - The Bourque Family Story of Dead Man Walking
- ^ http://www.moratoriumcampaign.org/
- ^ http://www.witnesstoinnocence.org
[edit] External links
- Official site [2]
- Sister Helen's blog [3]
- Literal.com "Sister Helen Prejean talks about the death penalty" [4]
- Helen Prejean on Twitter
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Helen Prejean at the Internet Movie Database
- Works by or about Helen Prejean in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- The Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project [5]
- Death Penalty Discourse Network [6]
- Angel on Death Row Newspaper accounts of the crimes and executions of Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie, Public Broadcasting Service [7]
- "Sister Helen Prejean: The Real Woman Behind Dead Man Walking", by John Bookser Feister, American Catholic, April, 1996 [8]
- Would Jesus pull the Switch? by Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., Salt of the Earth 1997 [9]
- Conversation with Sr. Helen Prejean by Marilyn Rodrigues, The Catholic Weekly August 17, 2003 [10]
- The National Review and Sr. Helen Prejean, C.S.J., August 1, 2006[11]
- Blood on our Hands: An Interview with Helen Prejean, by Shannon Presler, The Other Journal.com January 19, 2009 [12]
- "Walk the Talk Show with Waylon Lewis:Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking Fame", May 2009 [13]
