Activists share strategies for ending death
penalty
By TERESA MALCOLM
NCR Staff San Antonio
With state-sponsored executions on
the rise and controversy over the death penalty growing, some 300 religious
activists gathered in Texas to discuss ways to turn their opposition to the
death penalty into effective action.
Representatives of numerous Christian denominations, as well as
Muslims, Jews and Buddhists, explored ways to convey religious leaders
opposition to capital punishment to people in the pews, where between 70 and 80
percent support the death penalty, according to polls.
Thats an incredible majority, said Zac Moon, a
17-year-old Quaker. How can we be right? How is that possible?
Thats why its important that we talk to these folks. This issue
cant be solved in the headlines. It has to be solved in the community. I
think the movement will succeed only by people talking one-on-one.
The conference aimed to provide participants with facts and
strategies to turn that tide. Held April 8-11, this was the second conference
sponsored by the Philadelphia-based Religious Organizing Against the Death
Penalty Project, which was founded in 1996.
Participants called for more courage on the part of religious
leaders and more teaching about forgiveness, an idea powerfully expressed at
the conference by victims of deadly crimes.
Public support for capital punishment and an increase in
state-sponsored executions notwithstanding, Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty
Information Center said, Theres a lot of good news, and I
wouldnt have said this a year ago. Most notable, he said, are the
astounding developments on the religious front.
In his visit to the United States, Pope John Paul II made capital
punishment the single most important issue that he addressed. It was a
very pointed, clear, unfiltered statement, Dieter said.
The U.S. bishops Good Friday statement, calling on Catholics
and all people of good will to work against capital punishment, was
enthusiastically embraced by conference participants.
A few non-Christians
The Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project is
still about 95 percent Christian, according to Sr. Helen Prejean, one of the
founding members. At the San Antonio conference, we had one or two Jewish
people, one Native American, one Buddhist, she said. But the
symbolism is important.
She added that social justice -- action with a common value
of human rights and the dignity of the person -- is a worthy ecumenical
cause. We have a common ground to stand on that can bring together people
of different faiths, she said. Theres nothing artificial
about it.
In the past, such support from the religious community was not
always forthcoming. The former governor of New Mexico, Toney Anaya, spoke of
the cold reception his opposition to capital punishment received from religious
leaders during his term in the 1980s. When he commuted the sentences of five
men on death row just before he left office in 1986, he again found a
deafening silence.
I was hurt, I was disappointed, I felt personally
betrayed, said Anaya, a Catholic. It was a betrayal of [religious
leaders] consciences and a betrayal of their mission. Ive
challenged them on every occasion since then.
While the U.S. Catholic hierarchy has released statements against
the death penalty since the 1970s, lay Catholics have supported capital
punishment in much the same numbers as the rest of the country. James Megivern,
author of The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey, said
the bishops werent leading very far or very quickly.
Part of the problem, Megivern said, has been that priests have
failed to convey the churchs teaching against capital punishment to their
congregations for fear of alienating them.
Clarence Brandley, who spent 10 years on Texas death row for
a crime he did not commit, chastised clergy who were afraid to offend and
unwilling to speak about capital punishment from the pulpit. The church
must stand for that which it preaches about, Brandley said in a
rousing sermon-like speech at Saturday nights dinner. If
youre going to preach about love, preach about forgiveness, preach about
mercy, then you ought to be able to say that capital punishment is
wrong.
Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, said that clergy need
to be educated in the issues of the death penalty to better prepare them to
bring the churchs teaching to the congregation. They need to be
steeped in it. They need to know how to handle it because its an
explosive issue, she told NCR. You get up in the pulpit and
start talking about the death penalty, you get people mad at you.
She said to make its message most effective, the church needs to
stand solidly on both arms of this cross, and stand behind victims
of violence as well as speak against capital punishment.
The San Antonio conference embraced both victims of violence and
death row inmates, bringing in family members of both groups to talk about how
faith has helped them through their trauma.
At the Friday night program, held at Trinity University, Bud
Welch, a Catholic whose daughter Julie was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing,
moved the audience to tears with his tale of meeting Timothy McVeighs
family. I can tell you the rage and revenge I had after the Oklahoma City
bombing was incredible, Welch said. I changed my mind about the
death penalty. I know what temporary insanity is -- I lived it.
But he remembered an occasion when Julie heard about a Texas
execution on the radio and told him, Dad, all theyre doing is
teaching hate to their children in Texas.
In September 1998, he was able to arrange a meeting with
McVeighs father and sister, Jennifer, through the familys Catholic
parish. Before he left, he and Jennifer cried together. I was able to
hold her face in my hands and tell her, Honey, the three of us are in
this the rest of our lives. We can make the most of this if we choose. I
dont want your brother to die and I will do everything in my power to
prevent it, Welch said. He added, I have never in my life
felt closer to God than I did at that time.
Told to forgive
Arun Gandhi described his experience when his grandfather, Mahatma
Gandhi, was assassinated. The first thing our father told us was to
forgive the assassin, he said. The assassins were executed. When Arun
Gandhi later met with the man who had been convicted as an accomplice, Gandhi
found the man was still convinced what he did was right. I said to
myself, theres no point in trying to change him. All I can do is forgive
him -- unconditional forgiveness -- and be done with it. Gandhi said.
I wanted to unload that burden that Id been carrying with me for a
long time.
Marietta Jaeger, a founding member of Murder Victim Families for
Reconciliation, said, Forgiveness is hard work. Anyone who thinks
forgiveness is for wimps has never tried it.
Jaeger, who made herself pray each day for one good thing to
happen to the man who had kidnapped and killed her daughter, said,
Theres no one who can say to me, Well, Marietta, you
wouldnt be opposed to the death penalty if it happened to your little
girl. ... No amount of retaliatory death will compensate for the loss of
our loved ones or restore them to our arms. And, in fact, to say that the
execution death of any one malfunctioning person will bring justice is an
insult to the immeasurable value of our loved ones lives.
Participant Shelly Shafer, whose 20-year-old son, Wesley, is on
South Carolinas death row for a murder committed during a robbery, said
she found support and inspiration from the murder victims families.
This is the cream of the crop, the best of the
movement, Shafer told NCR. Theyre genuinely united in
love and with all those who suffer.
Shafer started a Death Row Family Support Network, which she hopes
to expand across the country. She has worked for awareness of social justice
issues in her Presbyterian congregation. The music director at her church cast
her as Mary in their Lenten production to provoke thought about the death
penalty. Another son, Barry, was Joseph of Arimathea and took the actor who
played Jesus down from the cross. The tomb was designed by one of Wesley
Shafers fellow inmates.
Sharon Davis said that her brother, sentenced to death in 1982 for
a murder he did not commit, is still living because God is powerful. One
of my prayers was that the judges and anybody that was connected to this case
would have a pure heart. His case was overturned in 1998, and the South
Carolina Supreme Court judges voted for a new trial.
Davis called on the faith community to reach out to families of
death row inmates and of victims of crime. Sometimes its hard to
ask for help, she said. But I believe if we are the faith
community, we should be seeking those who are in need.
Ministers to inmates described their battles for religious rights
on death row. Lenny Foster of the Navajo Nation Corrections Project said he has
spent 19 years as a spiritual adviser, struggling in courts and prisons to
obtain the right of Native Americans to practice their traditional beliefs.
Our beliefs are not viewed as a valid religion, Foster said.
For Native Americans, ceremonies such as the sweat lodge help a
person come in touch with his mind, his body and spirit, Foster
said. It effects change. ... You can see the wrongs and make these right.
You pray for the victims and feel for them. But prison wardens and
chaplains dont recognize these practices as a way to provide inmates
with sobriety, responsibility and respect, Foster said.
Naked before the Lord
The Rev. Peggy Harrell of the United Church of Christ has fought
court battles for the right of California death row inmates to choose their own
spiritual adviser. When she has been allowed to minister on death row, she
faced other obstacles: no water at hand, no bathroom and strip searches.
That strip search -- naked before the Lord takes on a whole
new meaning. They never told me about this in seminary! she said.
Harrell was not allowed to bring her own Communion hosts, and the
Catholic prison chaplain would not let her use the prison supply.
Its never not a fight, Harrell said. And
what today is about, what these tears are about, what this joy is about, is
that its not a fight today. ... This is preaching to the choir.
On Sunday, a delegation of 10 conference participants visited
Texas death row prisoners in Huntsville. The conference concluded Sunday
evening with a procession from the Alamo to the Cathedral of San Fernando,
where a prayer service was led by local high school members of Amnesty
International.
National Catholic Reporter, April 23,
1999
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