Sister Helen Prejean

Recently my name appeared on a New York Times ad urging citizens to call for the removal of George W. Bush from office. The reasons cited are many, among them:

• his reckless pursuit of war in Iraq, which has helped to destabilize the entire middle East
• his approval of torture
• his zealous promotion of imprisonment and executions
• his fiscal policies which make the wealthy people more wealthy and poor people poorer (During the past six years poverty in the U.S. has risen 17%)

There is, however, one issue addressed in the ad that I cannot endorse, which if I had seen the final version of the ad would have led me to withhold my signature. The statement reads:  "Your government is moving to deny women here and all over the world the right to birth control and abortion."  The life issues involved in the beginning of life are exceedingly complex. My stance on abortion is a matter of public record.  I stand morally opposed to killing:  war, executions, killing of the old and demented, the killing of children, unborn and born. As I have stated publicly many times, I stand squarely within the framework of "the seamless garment" ethic of life. I believe that all of life is sacred and must be protected, especially in the vulnerable stages at the beginning of life and its end.

I signed the ad because as a follower of the way of Jesus and a U.S. citizen, I cannot stand by passively and silently as I witness my government wage such grievous oppression and violence. It has been this same spirit of engaged citizenship that has for the past twenty years led me to speak out against the death penalty while encouraging my fellow citizens and my church to deeper reflection on the issue by the books and articles I have written and numerous public lectures.

For me, personally, it would be sinful not to raise my voice publicly in opposition to the life-destructive policies and practices of the Bush administration. That is what led me to sign the ad calling for his removal.

When I signed my endorsement of the ad, the conversation focused on the abuses of the Bush administration. I understood that the draft form of the ad which I signed was an intent of my willingness to sign the ad; however, I expected to be given a final version to critique before affixing my signature.  Since that opportunity was not granted, I feel the need to issue this clarification.

Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ

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Here’s what I know about a purpose-driven life. In my
travels across this country, especially when I speak to university crowds it
has amazed me that so many of the questions that arise after my talk focus on:
where does your energy come from? How can I know what I’m supposed to do with
my life? I never go to church but I’m a spiritual person. How can I develop a
spiritual practice?

I love them, these young people growing up in truly amazing
and challenging times. Hearts big, ideals high, critical intelligence
stimulated by what they’re learning – so many needs in the world. How do you
catch on fire? How do you blaze with a passion that fires you up to devote your
life to something really BIG and you don’t count the cost. You’re committed.
For life.

It took me a long time to wake up to social justice. I
wasn’t always committed to the abolition of the death penalty. In fact, I
supported it for far too long in my adult life. And my spirituality, my way of
practicing Christianity didn’t help because I was living in a two-tiered
universe. I had my eyes set on heaven and being a perfect little nun-saint, and
I didn’t give a hoot, I was totally unaware of desperately poor and struggling
African American people who lived literally in the back yard of our motherhouse
in New Orleans,
the very people you saw abandoned in the superdome after Katrina. In my book, Dead Man Walking, on pages 5 and 6 (of
the paperback edition) I tell the story of finally waking up and it had a lot
to do with understanding Jesus, the real Jesus, who sided with poor and
marginalized people, the despised ones.

Here’s the best book on Jesus I ever read: Jesus before
Christianity by Albert Nolan. Check it out (I’ve put a link to it in My Book List in the sidebar). It was a kapow! Revelatory
awakening to Jesus of the Poor that ignited my soul and led me first to poor
people in my own backyard, then to death row in Louisiana, and it’s all been
unfurling ever since.

I welcome your dialogue. I’m just getting this lil bloggin’
deal going, find it very exciting. If you’ve read this far, our souls have connected
across cyberspace. I look for your response. On a weekly basis I read the
comment section and respond. Thanks for visiting with me.

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Hey there!

Welcome to my blog. Welcome to my life: Experiences on the public speaking circuit;
visiting prisoners and victims’ families; cooking up Cajun red beans or chicken
stew: playing my saxophone (got it at a pawn shop/ardent beginner); my writing
projects in process (articles, op eds, books – I’m presently writing a book for
Orbis Press about my experiences with poor women in Nicaragua); and my writing
process: what happens as I face the blank page, the adventure of discovery as a
book unfolds, poetry that rises up from my soul… "I awoke, my heart
growing flowers…"; sharing very interesting letters I get from people
from all over the world, who have seen the film of Dead Man Walking or read the
book and those who have read The Death of Innocents; my experiences with the
opera of Dead Man Walking, which premiered in San Francisco in 2000 and
recently opened in Europe in Dresden, Germany, and I was there to do talks and
media interviews to introduce people to the story; what’s going on with the
stage play of Dead Man Walking in universities and some high schools now in its
third year (hop over to the Play Project web site to learn more).

I’ll take you with me on my learning curve: The web of life
and how we humans (urgently) need to learn to live in a mutually enhancing way
with Earth. In the last two weeks of August I’ll be at Genesis Farm, an
ecological learning center in Blairstown, N.J., taking Earth Literacy. Everything’s
connected, life is whole, and my spirituality is broadening, deepening to see
the holy Spirit in all of life. This leads me to partner with Sister Marya
Grathwohl, OSF, in doing conferences and retreats which bring together human
rights (my bailiwick) and the crisis of Earth (Marya’s bailiwick).

And, well, throw into the mix life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness: books I read, people I admire, my fledgling art projects with
sketches and watercolor.

I’m intrigued by people who unleash energy in the world (finally
it’s all about energy: isn’t love the greatest energy of all?), and not just
social justice activists but people like the Beatles, people like Elvis Presley
and, of course, people like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. And Father
Roy Bourgeois, who almost single-handedly raised awareness of the torture
training center at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. Ten
thousand people gather there every year to call for an end to torture and
military solutions to world conflicts, always on the weekend before
Thanksgiving. I’ll be there this year, too, as I have been for the past
three years.

My faith, which I try to live, not just talk about, is at
the heart of what I do, how I move, what I see. I am urgently, terribly,
white-hot concerned about what the right-wing folks are doing to Jesus,
twisting his message to uphold wealthy people getting wealthier while poor
people suffer and die, promoting the death penalty, war, and torture-as
"Christian". Yuck! Augh! I gotta speak out about that…poor Jesus,
taken hostage by the right-wing Christians. I have puuullllenty to say about
that…

I invite you to share your ideas, comments, humor, and
please, humor in any form – we can’t make it without humor. Whatever your heart
feels and thinks. Every week I’ll be back and respond. I like this online discourse,
riding the waves of cyberspace, you and me connecting, touching each other’s
souls like this.

Be free. Don’t get hung up on the nun thing and think you
have to talk to me in a nunny way.  And I’ll bet you a dime to a dollar
you can’t tell me a nun joke I haven’t already heard.  Just click the
Comments link below, drop me a line, and I’ll be looking for you.

Sister Helen

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