- I’ve been speaking in Maryland about abolishing death penalty there. You can watch a video of the talk. http://ow.ly/MUU #
- Watching the film “The Reader” reawakened in me exactly what the death penalty is: it is a horror. Nothing less. A horror in our midst. #
Sister Helen Prejean
Dear Sister Helen,
Another film you could see is ‘Pierrepoint’, in which Timothy Spall plays the leading role of Albert Pierrepoint, one of the UK’s last executioners. There’s a line in which he states (after one execution) that: “…It’s the government that wants them killed, not me”. But as the film makes clear, even he couldn’t detatch himself as a human being from what he was doing – especially when on one occasion he executed someone he knew personally.
And at the end, the film quotes Pierrepoint as saying that none of the state killings he did ever prevented a murder. After his retirement, Pierrepoint remained an opponent of the return of the death penalty to the end of his life.
Dear Sister Helen,
Your note about ‘The Reader’ sent me remembering a holiday in Tuscany with a friend. The town of San Gimignano had a Medieval Criminal and Torture Museum (Museo della Tortura e di Criminologia Medievale), cataloging tortures place in history.
The impact of the museum was not fully felt until the endless one way ended with a reality of sunshine, outside, and a cross. I have never been so humbled as when I approached the cross that day.
I left the museum to meet up with my friend and not able to fully articulate myself.