Florida Catholic | Sister Prejean Found Grace In Death Of Another

Sister Prejean found grace in death of another

“Dead Man Walking” author and death penalty foe shares story of capital punishment at Leven Conference.

BOB REDDY | FLORIDA CATHOLIC VENICE BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 03.28.08

Sister Helen Prejean, Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, tries to get people to “fire it up” during the keynote speech at the Leaven XVI Conference March 15 at San Antonio Parish in Port Charlotte.
BOB REDDY | FC

PORT CHARLOTTE | Being a pen pal and then a spiritual adviser with death row inmate Elmo Patrick Sonnier changed the life of Sister Helen Prejean.

On the last day of Sonnier’s life, Sister Prejean was there and the grace of Jesus came upon her.

This is what Sister Prejean, Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, told the people who attended the Leaven XIV Conference March 15 at San Antonio Parish. She was the keynote speaker at the daylong conference sponsored by the Diocese of Venice Peace and Justice Office.

Sister Prejean said she was going to “fire it up.” She noted that “justice is basically ‘just us.’ Justice is the life-blood of the church. Never leap ahead of grace. It is upward mobility to find our voices. You’ve got to wake up.”

Rousing the crowd of more than 400 inside the church, the author of “Dead Man Walking” explained how she went from being a simple nun in New Orleans to finding the grace of Jesus by doing prison ministry work.

“On my last day with Pat (Sonnier) it was unlike anything I have ever been through. It was the protocol of death. I was with someone who I had known for two and a half years and then you only know with your mind and your watch that they are coming, coming to kill this man. I remained in grace to be with him and let it unfurl.”

Sister Prejean said Sonnier, who was convicted of killing two teenagers, did not want her to go to the execution, but she would have nothing of that.

She told him, “‘You are not going to die without a living face to see,’ and grace surged up under us. He looked at my face as they killed him.”

When the execution was completed April 5, 1984, she felt very cold and found her sisters waiting for her outside and they put a coat around her.

“It was chilling. I threw up. It didn’t matter if the Supreme Court said it was OK. I had seen the grace and my mission was born at that moment,” Sister Prejean said. “I didn’t realize how my whole life would change.”

She learned from the families of Sonnier’s victims that it was possible to follow the way of Jesus and not to choose sides. From that experience, she founded Survive, an organization devoted to providing counseling to the families of the victims of violence.

The movie about her experiences, starring Susan Sarandon, opened a whole new level of discourse in this country on the death penalty.

Sister Prejean’s work is based at the Death Penalty Discourse Network in New Orleans. She travels the country and gives more than 140 lectures each year.

Sister Prejean said she liked coming to the Leaven XIV Conference because she could see from the people in the crowd that they are going to carry on the fight to end the death penalty “There is so much more work to do,” she said.

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Sister Prejean found grace in death of another

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