Sister Helen and Capital Punishment

The death penalty is wrong. After reading Sister Prejean’s account of her encounters with death row inmates I came to this conclusion. Before I had been somewhat ambivalent - yes on the one hand killing is wrong, but on the other hand is there any other adequate punishment? The decision that her words helped me to find is that a life spent behind bars is punishment enough. Let these prisoners be judged in the afterlife. Do not let the state become the murderer of murderers. She also emphasizes that it is cruel and unusual. When she described how long it takes for some men to die in the electric chair I could not help but cringe. Her vivid description of the smell of singed flesh also resonated deeply in helping to convince me how wrong the capital punishment.

In this book she tells how she was able to let the prisoners sanctity take precedence over her own well-being. Though she did not want to correspond with another prisoner after watching the execution of Pat Sonnier she agreed to. With each prisoner she met, she found humanity in them that made the crimes they had committed baffling to her. As she became their spiritual advisor though, Sister Helen found herself praying for them and realized how wrong it was to murder them. The bible calls for us to forgive. An eye for an eye is not justice; it is revenge. Sister Helen asserts that the state should not be in the business of revenge.