Helen Prejean Quotes

When you try, God is there and you get the grace you need to get you through.

I have no doubt that we will one day abolish the death penalty in America. It will come sooner if people like me who know the truth about executions do our work well and educate the public. It will come slowly if we do not. Because, finally, I know that it is not a question of malice or ill will or meanness of spirit that prompts our citizens to support executions. It is, quite simply, that people don't know the truth of what is going on. That is not by accident. The secrecy surrounding executions makes it possible for executions to continue. I am convinced that if executions were made public, the torture and violence would be unmasked, and we would be shamed into abolishing executions. We would be embarrassed at the brutalization of the crowds that would gather to watch a man or woman be killed. And we would be humiliated to know that visitors from other countries - Japan, Russia, Latina America, Europe - were watching us kill our own citizens - we, who take pride in being the flagship of democracy in the world. (p. 197)

We are not the worst moments of our lives. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking.

The prospect that a person will be killed according to the policy he promulgates prompts the [priest] to urge clemency, an incomprehensible position logically.

Once you inject fear into a society of people, they become more and more afraid because they don't cross over the neighbourhoods and the only information they get about other people is through the media.

...there's no such thing as being apolitical. If we sit back and do nothing, leaving all the policy making to others, that is, in fact, a position of support for the status quo, which is a very political stance to take.

There are spaces of sorrow only God can touch.

It would take me a long time to understand how systems inflict pain and hardship in people's lives and to learn that being kind in an unjust system is not enough.

Mercy is "stronger and more God-like than vengeance".

no government is ever innocent enough or wise enough or just enough to lay claim to so absolute a power as death. (p. 21)

The movement to abolish the death penalty needs the religious community because the heart of religion is about compassion, human rights, and the indivisible dignity of each human person made in the image of God.

When people of color are killed in the inner city, when homeless people are killed, when the "nobodies" are killed, district attorneys do not seek to avenge their deaths. Black, Hispanic, or poor families who have a loved one murdered not only don't expect the district attorney's office to pursue the death penalty -which, of course, is both costly and time consuming- but are surprised when the case is prosecuted at all.

The important thing is that when you come to understand something you act on it, no matter how small that act is. Eventually it will take you where you need to go.

Well, ma'am that's hard to do because Vernon Harvey keeps holding these press conferences, mouthin' off about how he can't wait to see me fry. Personally, I think the guy is his own worst enemy. He just needs to let it go, man. The girl's dead now, and there's nothin' he can do to bring her back. Even watchin' me fry ain't gonna bring her back, but he won't let it go and he's just makin' himself miserable, in my opinion.

Who killed this man [Patrick Sonnier]?
Nobody.
Everybody can argue that he or she was just doing a job - the governor, the warden, the head of the Department of Corrections, the district attorney, the judge, the jury, the Pardon Board, the witnesses to the execution. Nobody feels personally responsible for the death of this man. (p. 101)

I watch what I'm doing to see what I believe.

The death penalty is a poor person's issue. Always remember that: after all the rhetoric that goes on in the legislative assemblies, in the end, when the deck is cast out, it is the poor who are selected to die in this country.

I keep thinking of the gifts of my own upbringing, which I once took for granted: I can read any book I choose and comprehend it. I can write a complete sentence and punctuate it correctly. If I need help, I can call on judges, attorneys, educators, ministers. I wonder what I would be like if I had grown up without such protections and supports. What cracks would have turned up in my character?

I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it ... I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a woman with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer.

Lavish love on others receive it gratefully when it come to you. Cultivate friendship like a garden. It is the best love of all.

People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives

Patrick had asked why people wanted to kill Mr. Sonnier.
"Because they say he killed people," Bill had answered.
"But, Dad"," Patrick had asked, "then who is going to kill them for killing him?" (p. 60)

I tell myself that I had simply better accept the fact that the death penalty is here to stay in our society, at least for a while, and there is nothing I can do about it. Maybe, in time- after how many executions? - people will come to realize the futility of randomly selecting a few people to die each year.

I realize that I cannot stand by silently as my government executes its citizens. If I do not speak out and resist, I am an accomplice.

Time rushes by and yet time is frozen. Funny how we get so exact about time at the end of life and at its beginning. She died at 6:08 or 3:46, we say, or the baby was born at 4:02. But in between we slosh through huge swatches of time
weeks, months, years, decades even.

If we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well.

The death penalty costs too much. Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons. (p. 197)

Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons.