I
i'iT"i'i'Tnrir"Trii"'TrTiT!T"iiT'
m
mammM li
£80
fjfjes
October
Volume
8
16,
Number
t
NEWS
1998 7
Serving Catholics
Nun Aquinas hosts
10
Youth gathering
12
roles ...Page
his
—
Lloyd LeBlanc
knees
in a
Louisiana
The boy was face down, his head pierced with three bullet holes. Nearby lay his girlfriend, Loretta Bourque, 18, also face down. She had been raped before being shot three
3
Lloyd LeBlanc was filled with Yet kneeling in that field, he uttered the words that came into his heart and mind: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, rage, grief and pain.
we
forgive those
against
New Augustinlan community Maggie Valley
11
who
Several years later, Lloyd LeBlanc met Sister Helen Prejean. She was in the same room with him as Patrick Sonnier, one of the men convicted in the murders, was executed. She watched, listened and prayed as LeBlanc and his family struggled to mend. More than 20 years after the Helen
Winston-Salem
10
the story. It's part of a ministry devoted to healing in the wake of life-ending violence and, still tells
—
more
specifically, a plea for the elimi-
nation of the death penalty in this country.
You see. Sister Helen reached out to Patrick Sonnier, too. She was
tvcry Week
his spiritual adviser.
Editorials
& Columns ...Pages
4-5
Entertainment ...Pages
8-9
Spanish supplement in this issue!
Comuniquemonos Ministerio HIspano
"The Gospel of Jesus people who have done crime," Sister Helen said speaking engagement at University Oct. 6. "Our
Photo by Jimmy Rostar
Helen Prejean, seated, signs copies of her Pulitzer Prize-nominated "Dead Man Walking" Oct. 6 at Wingate University. Sister Helen, a writer, lecturer and community organizer, spoke to audiences in Wingate and High Point about her ministry to death row inmates. Sister
trespass
"
us....
murders of the teen-agers. Sister
Post-abortion counseling
...Page
JIMMY ROSTAR
beside the lifeless body of his 17-year-old son, David.
as
in
By
It was November 1977. The teens died homecoming night following the football game at their Catholic high school.
U.S. Catholic bishops
workshop
man walking
times as well.
Chile
...Page
the Diocese of Charlotte
field
Charlotte
.Page
compassion
dropped to
visits
...Page
of
WINGATE
Mary Beth
in
in
Staff Writer
speaker
speak on women's
Western North Carolina
message
visits with
St Thomas
in
in
HERALD
Reaching out to the dead
n$ide
Bonnacci
&
comes
to
terrible
during a
Her answer is rooted in "firm, moral bedrock," she said. "Do we deserve to be involved in the killing of a fellow human being who's been sentenced to death?"
Helping the poor
iiy-
She never had real contact with the poor until she moved into a poverty-stricken housing project in New Orleans in the summer of 1981. Her religious community, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, sought more active ways to work for social justice. The nuns took a hard look at poverty and the scriptural call to eradicate it. "There was an awakening in me terms of understanding the Gospel of Jesus and that to follow Jesus, I needed to be in touch with the poorest, most struggling people in soci-
guilty?"
ety," she said.
—
Hers
in
That
friend from the Prison Coalition of-
Man
fice
a
Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States," in the Oscar-winning film adaptation, and in her reflection on how many members of American society are "deeply ambivalent" about capital punishment.
led her to death row.
asked Sister Helen if she'd be interested in writing to a death row inmate, Patrick Sonnier. Sister Helen agreed. She had no idea that by assenting to be a pen pal,
she would be doing much more. She didn't know that in
two
to
know
a
tell
him
to look at her,
that she will be the face of Christ for
him. She would watch him be put to death.
And
a new mission would be her life to connect faith in Jesus with human rights and abolition of the death penalty.
born
in
A transformative
effect
Sister Helen has accompanied four men to their executions. She has
ministered to numbers of inmates awaiting their deaths, and to victims' families whose loved ones were ripped away. She is horrified by unspeakable crimes and is pained by the agony of those who survive them. She has been scorned by other victims' families and death penalty proponents for reaching out to the con-
demned.
And
A
question explored in her Pulitzer-nominated book, "Dead is
would get
person "who was worth more than the worst thing they've ever done in their life." She'd place her hand on the shoulder of this death row inmate as he is led to the electric chair.
She would
"For a long time, I didn't understand the connection between the Gospel of Jesus and justice," Sister Helen said. A native of Baton Rouge, La., she grew up as a child of privilege in a loving, well-educated fam-
big challenge is not to be pro-life for the innocent we need to be that, too. But what does 'pro-life' mean for the
Wingate
years' time, she
while she does not see death and feels as heroes outrage over what they have done she remains steadfast in her conviction that it is wrong for anyone, both the Patrick Sonniers of the world and the governments who convict them, to take the life of another hu-
row inmates
See sister
—
HELEN PRBEAN,
—
page
7