Sister Helen Prejean was born on April 21, 1939, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to an upper-middle-class Catholic family. As a child, Sr. Helen lived in a society deeply divided by race and class. Segregation in the South was easily recognize, and the violence against blacks was relatively common. She joined a religious community known as Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille in 1957 (today is known as the Congregation of St. Joseph). She received a B.A. in English and Education from St. Mary's Dominican College in New Orleans in 1962. In 1973, she earned an M.A. in Religious Education from St. Paul's University in Ottawa, Canada. She has been the Religious Education Director at St. Frances Cabrini Parish in New Orleans. She is also the Formation Director …show more content…
She experiences and understands of Jesus' teachings gradually called her to a life of social activism. In 1980, she was inspired by a lecture on social justice given by Sister Marie August Neal. Sister Neal stressed Jesus' idea that rich must share what they have with the poor and live as if the struggles of the poor are their own. Sister Helen began her prison ministry in 1981 when she decided her life to the poor of New Orleans. While living in the St. Thomas housing project, she became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers, sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana's Angola State Prison. The correspondence marked the beginning of Sister Helen's interest in the capital punishment system, a system she came to believe was cruel and unfair. The execution of Patrick Sonnier permanently altered her. She thought she could never return to death row again but six months later she came back and counsel Robert Willie. She became a full time advocate for abolishing the death penalty and expanded her work to include assisting victim's …show more content…
What Sister Helen is trying to convey is that capital punishment, poverty, and violence must be understood as three symptoms of the general injustice of society. Each struggle for the poor and disposed is a struggle for justice. As for Patrick Sonnier and Robert Willie, taking responsibility for their crimes is the first step to atonement. The state officials Sister Helen encounters must understand that they bear some of the responsibility for the executions they carry out. Sister Helen believes that most of these officials are decent men and women, but she also believes that their participation in an unjust system cannot go unnoticed. Only when each individual claims responsibility for his or her role in the state's death penalty policies can change happen. Sister Helen's moral and spiritual philosophy is informed both by her faith and by the philosophies of Albert Camus, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Sister Helen often returns to the ideas of individual responsibility and nonviolent action, both of which were essential components of Camus, Gandhi and King's
http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/dorotheadix.html. This site gives another overview of Dorothea Dix’s early life and career highlights, but does so with an emphasis on her finding her religious home among ...
Sister Helen Prejean was born on April 21, 1939 in Louisiana and author of “Executions Are Too Costly Morally”. She is a member of Order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille at the age 18 and supports the Abolishment of Death Penalty. She became internationally famous with her book Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, the book was based on her own experiences of counseling and advising prisoners on death row in Louisiana prisons. She is also the founder of Survive, which is a victim’s advocacy group in New Orleans.
The mentally ill was mistreated, beaten, thrown into unclean quarters, and even taken advantage of before the 1800's. They was viewed as helpless individuals. Society and the government viewed them as criminals and deemed them incurable. During the 1800's a pioneer named Dorothea Dix brought about a change dealing with the treatment of the mentally ill. She became the voice of them something they never had.
While learning of Dorothy's day life, we can truly see what a virtuous life looks like. Day grew up very little and played a major role in the social justice movement and was punished because of her part in it. Day had to overcome these struggles and because of this, she became a virtuous person. Day dedicated her life to helping the homeless and gave everything she had to people who had less than her. She had created a house of hospitality, that welcomed everyone, including drug addicts and prostitutes. Day didn’t ask for anything in return, she enjoyed helping these people. In the text she writes, “We appealed in our last issue for bed, and eight bed came. Our House of Hospitality for unemployed women is furnished now, and the surplus hat comes in we will gives to unemployed people in the neighborhood” (Day 60). Day was in the process of creating this one for women, it didn't matter how much she had, all she cared about was helping others in need. She used reason and her faith to make these choices, there was no battle, doing the right thing was natural. Dorothy Day was also one of the creators of the Catholic Worker, which became very influential to the social justice movement. A source writes, “They called the paper The "Catholic" Worker because at the time many Catholics were poor. Peter and Dorothy wanted to influence Catholics, who were criticized for a lack of social and political morality. The
“Well, Alice, my father said, if it had to happen to one of you, I’m glad it was you and not your sister” (57). Even though Alice was the victim of the horrid crime, she had to stabilize her own emotions, so that she could help her sister cope with this tragedy. Throughout Alice’s childhood, Jane struggled with alcoholism and panic attacks. “I wished my mother were normal, like other moms, smiling and caring, seemingly, only for her family” (37).
This work was rejected by many of the more conservative elements in the movement and a storm of protest arose as many of her colleagues condemned her. When she dies in 1902, she was no longer the movement’s leader and was unfortunately, not around to see women’s suffrage in the United States. Her crusade lasted for over fifty years of her life, as she learned and profited from her mistakes and failures, realizing that everything isn’t perfect. Even though she has been dead for quite some time now, her concerns, ideas, and accomplishments have endured and continue to influence the feminist movement and other movements for progress in the twentieth century.
A unique word choice introduces this essay, causing readers to be misguided. Staples begins by saying “My first victim was a woman…”(383). This choice of words obligated our minds to perceive this man as a criminal who was about to tell us his story. Staples allows himself to be portrayed as such a horrible person because that is exactly what people viewed him as. He uses self-blame as though he has accepted the fact of reality that he was viewed as a criminal and always will be. It seems as though he wanted to mislead us as readers so we would make the same mistake others did. A feeling of great guilt is created for judging this man that we barely knew. In such a simple way, Staples creates an ...
At that time, Viola Desmond was the one of the only successful black canadian business woman and beautician in Halifax because there are were very few careers offered to the black. She Attended Bloomfield High school and also, studied in a program from Field Beauty Culture School, located in Montreal. These schools were one of the only academies that accepted black students. After she graduated, she promoted and sold her products because she wanted expanded her business;she also sold many of her products to her graduates. In addition, she opened a VI’s studio of beauty culture in Halifax.
I believe Sister Helen’s success in dealing with the issue of capital punishment falls on the two cases for which she was a spiritual advisor. In these cases, Sister Helen always tried her best to grant stays of execution or a court appeal. She fought for what she believed in and tried her best to abolish the death penalty. Sister in no way condemned what these killers had done, but tried her best to comfort them in their time of loneliness, sorrow, and need.
“Picking up the pieces of their shattered lives was very, very difficult, but most survivors found a way to begin again.” Once again, Helen was faced with the struggle of living life day-to-day, trying not to continue feeling the pain of her past.
From 1608-2002, Louisiana has only executed 658 (ProCon). There have been several different methods from hanging, the electric chair, and now lethal injection. On November 28, 1942, the first woman was executed by the electric chair in the state of Louisiana. Her name was Toni Jo Henry and she suffered in many ways throughout her life. From losing her mother and enduring an abusive father, to working in a brothel where men used her as they pleased, to having her husband locked up in jail with no way out. Does that excuse her killing an innocent man?
When she died, a multitude came down to the old dwelling off the Bowery to pay their respects, the way people had come to Catholic Worker houses for soup. There were Catholic Workers, social workers, migrant workers, the unemployed; addicts, alcoholics, anarchists; Protestants, Jews and agnostics; the devout and the strident and the curious, there to see what a saint looked like. Dorothy Day died in 1980, at the age of 83. She was one of the greatest religious figures of the century, and one of the most paradoxical. She was a Catholic and she was an anarchist. She condemned poverty and she advocated it. She founded the Catholic Worker, a loose aggregation of 'houses of hospitality,' communal farms, newspapers and round-table discussions for 'further clarification of thought' - and called her memoirs 'The Long Loneliness.' The movement was wary of authority, yet revered her as its leader (Rosin).
The author’s purpose is to also allow the audience to understand the way the guards and superintendent felt towards the prisoners. We see this when the superintendent is upset because the execution is running late, and says, “For God’s sake hurry up, Francis.” And “The man ought to have been dead by this time.” This allows the reader to see the disrespect the authority has towards the prisoners.
Mother Sister certainly believes she is on a higher moral plane than the lowly Mayor and is usually seen by way of a low-angle shot high in her window preaching down and casting criticism on the passersby, giving her an almost God-like characteristic. The high angle shots from her view give Da Mayor and others on the street a trivial and humble image. The two are rarely seen at th...
Allowing readers to glimpse her own story as she painfully evaluates her role as mother side by side with historical accounts of other women's experiences provides an avenue for understanding that leads to compassion. By the final chapter, instead of falling into the expected trap of revulsion toward Joanne Michulski's heinous crime, Rich's empathy provides the reader with the insight to realize both the complexity of Michulski's situation and to feel comp...