Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ -- whose ministry among death row inmates in Louisiana State Penitentiary was the subject of her 1993 book "Dead Man Walking" and the 1996 Oscar-winning movie of the same name -- delivered the Ensign Lecture in the Divinity School's Marquand Chapel on Oct. 15 during the annual fall Convocation of the Divinity School and the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.
A member of the sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, based in New Orleans, Sister Prejean has been an outspoken advocate against the death penalty. Her work to abolish the death penalty has taken her all over the United States and abroad, most recently to Italy, Northern Ireland and Japan.
The following are some excerpts from Sister Prejean's Yale talk:
On the death penalty: "We have a penchant in our society for trying to solve social problems through violence. We want to target the enemy, identify him, and get rid of him. It's so easy to go for surface solutions. ..."
"How do we make the list of who gets the death penalty? ... Less than one percent of the people convicted for murder get the death penalty... It's become a symbol used by politicians to show they are willing to be tough on crime. But the death penalty is no deterrent. Logical, sensible people run the system, but violence happens by people who aren't being logical and sensible. Violence happens out of the current of lives that are out of control. ...
"Seventy-five percent of the people are supposedly in favor of the death penalty, but I've found that the vast majority of people are deeply ambivalent about it. I do not find it hopeless to think that one day we will be able to abolish the death penalty."
On meeting Patrick Solnier, her first death row correspondent: "I didn't know what it was going to be like. I was very nervous. I heard the chains on his feet clanging on the cement floor before I saw him. I expected he was going to be black, but he was white, Cajun. I could hear his accent when he was coming down the hall. When he first sees me, he is smiling. He can't believe I've come to visit him. He's had a thousand reminders every day of how worthless he is. People on death row are made to feel like disposable human waste. The visit gave him dignity and value as a human being. I felt immediately that he was worth more than whatever bad deed he had done. We're all worth more than the bad things we've done. ...
"When I read his case [months after beginning the relationship], I felt terribly guilty for showing him care, for accompanying him. He had done a terrible, unspeakable crime. ... But love is stronger than hate. Redemption is stronger than retribution."
On writing "Dead Man Walking": "When I sat down to write 'Dead Man Walking,' I thought a lot about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You sit in silence at the computer. Alone. ... Sometimes writing felt like doing the breast-stroke through peanut butter. ... Before I started, I wondered: Why write another book about the death penalty? If you're for it, you can read Rush Limbaugh. If you're against, there's literature from Amnesty International. ..."
On making the movie: "One day I was in my kitchen and got a call from Susan Sarandon, who had read the book and said, 'I'm interested in acting the role in a movie. I went out and rented 'Thelma and Louise,' to see who she was. I got her mixed up with Gena Davis, the ditsy one who gets them into all the trouble. When I met Susan Sarandon in a New Orleans restaurant, my first reaction was relief: It's the other one! ... Of course, she hadn't exactly portrayed nuns in her other films. ...
"[Susan Sarandon] was the midwife of the movie. She wanted Tim Robbins to read it and write the screenplay, and she kept after him for months. ... Tim Robbins said, 'We're not going to make you a saint in the movie. We're going to show you in all your humanness, show you getting in over your head and making mistakes.' Tim wrote the film script and took it around to the studios. Every studio turned it down. The one that finally agreed to make the film ended up glad it did. ..."
-- By Gila Reinstein