
Sr. Helen Prejean: Leading Advocate Against the Death Penalty & Author of Dead Man Walking
Please Join Us on Friday, April 25th @ 12 Noon!
Last Speaker Luncheon of the 2024-2025 Season. Tickets Now On Sale!
A soul on fire: Helen Prejean’s fight on behalf of the most despised Americans
Click below to register and purchase your ticket(s) for the Helen Prejean speaker luncheon at the Union League Club.
$60 Nonmember | $50 Member* of First Friday Club of Chicago | $600 Table (10 seats) | All tickets include three course meal + presentation
Online reservations close Tuesday, April 22nd @ 5pm. For any questions or reservations after April 22nd, please call Judy Murphy at 224-392-9361
A SOUL ON FIRE: Helen Prejean’s fight on behalf of the most despised Americans
Helen Prejean got into her ministry against the death penalty almost by accident in her early forties, with a decision to write to a prisoner on death row. She credits “Sneaky Jesus” for this idea, which changed her life. Her 1993 book, Dead Man Walking, made into a movie, brought her onto the national stage.
Today Sister Prejean is still the most prominent voice against the death penalty in the U.S. She urged Popes John Paul II and Francis to change church teaching to oppose capital punishment in any circumstance, which finally happened in 2018.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the battle is winding down. The governor of Prejean’s home state Louisianna, has ended a 15-year pause on executions. The new administration in Washington has pledged to ramp up the death penalty. Because more than 60 pharmaceutical companies refuse to supply drugs for use in executions, states are turning to firing squads, electrocution, and use of nitrogen gas to suffocate prisoners. Race still plays a huge role in who is sentenced to death. So there’s plenty of work to be done. “Have to do it,” says Sr. Helen Prejean. “Can’t not do it.”
MORE ON HELEN PREJEAN
Sister Helen Prejean is known around the world for her tireless work against the death penalty. She has been instrumental in sparking national dialogue on capital punishment and in shaping the Catholic Church’s vigorous opposition to all executions.
Born on April 21, 1939, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she joined the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1957. After studies in the USA and Canada, she spent the following years teaching high school, and serving as the Religious Education Director at St. Frances Cabrini Parish in New Orleans and the Formation Director for her religious community.
In 1982, she moved into the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans in order to live and work with the poor. While there, Sister Helen began corresponding with Patrick Sonnier, who had been sentenced to death for the murder of two teenagers. Two years later, when Patrick Sonnier was put to death in the electric chair, Sister Helen was there to witness his execution. In the following months, she became spiritual advisor to another death row inmate, Robert Lee Willie, who was to meet the same fate as Sonnier.
After witnessing these executions, Sister Helen realized that this lethal ritual would remain unchallenged unless its secrecy was stripped away, and so she sat down and wrote a book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States. Dead Man Walking hit the shelves when national support for the death penalty was over 80% and, in Sister Helen’s native Louisiana, closer to 90%. The book ignited a national debate on capital punishment and it inspired an Academy Award winning movie, a play and an opera. Sister Helen also embarked on a speaking tour that continues to this day.
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