Today’s guest\u00a0<\/b>is Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun famous for her activism against the death penalty. In the early 1980s, Prejean met a prisoner on death row\u2014Elmo Patrick Sonnier\u2014after an activist asked her to write him a letter. She served as Sonnier’s spiritual adviser and accompanied him to his death, which inspired her work against capital punishment. Her 1993 book, Dead Man Walking<\/i>, was made into a movie starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Prejean. Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally also created a highly regarded opera of the same name.<\/p>\n

Reason<\/em>‘s Billy Binion spoke with Prejean about growing up in the segregated South, her opposition to the death penalty, how she connects with crime victims, and her response to Christians who believe the death penalty is just.<\/p>\n

0:00\u2014Introduction
1:15\u2014Dead Man Walking<\/em> and being a spiritual adviser
4:40\u2014Sister Prejean’s death row counseling
11:52\u2014Robert Lee Willie and Faith Hathaway
18:45\u2014Advocating for “unpopular” people
29:20\u2014Marcellus Williams
33:09\u2014Would Prejean support the death penalty even if absolute certainty was possible?
34:48\u2014Faith-based activism and “loving your enemy”
40:07\u2014Being truly “pro-life”
42:29\u2014Navigating tribalism
44:29\u2014Calling on the church to embrace feminism and LGBTQ inclusivity
47:07\u2014Prejean’s personal history and Vatican II reforms
51:40\u2014Falling in love with a priest despite a vow of celibacy
56:42\u2014The biggest threat in the world now<\/p>\n

\n
• Video Editor:<\/strong> Ian Keyser<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  The post Helen Prejean: Why This Nun Is Fighting To End the Death Penalty<\/a> appeared first on Reason.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Billy Binion speaks to Sister Helen Prejean about her activism to end the death penalty, as depicted in her book Dead Man Walking. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109623"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}