About ten years ago I came across Sister Helen Prejean's book 'Dead Man Walking' in which she tells the story of her friendship with two death row prisoners in the United States. This unassuming Roman Catholic nun began writing to prisoners and eventually to visit and talk with them - as well as with the families of their victims.
Both men described in her book were guilty of unspeakable crimes; there was nothing sympathetic about them in human terms. And yet Sister Helen offered them friendship as human persons loved by God and spoke of his mercy. I read the book before I began to explore Christianity and, despite my lack of Christian faith, found myself profoundly moved by one memorable passage. One of the prisoners is due to be executed, and Sister Helen asks to be present at the execution. He doesn't want her to have to see it, but she says that she wants him to be able to see her face. "I want to be the face of Jesus for you," she explains.
The book is harrowing at times and the film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn mildly traumatised me. There are times I find it hard to sleep at night knowing of the horrors that are sometimes perpetrated by human beings towards each other. I know that I wouldn't stand much of a chance against an attacker and when the floorboards creak at night I am haunted by terrors. I wonder if this is part of the rage with which some of us call for the death penalty; I wonder if it's partly motivated by fear - by a desire to fight the nightmares and put them out of existence. And yet... Can inhumanity be fought with more inhumanity? When we brutally kill someone who brutally killed another, can the cycle of violence be broken?
An academic was on the BBC Breakfast programme this morning commenting on the release of Gerry Adams (the DVD recorder was playing up so I was forced to watch breakfast TV). Adams has been questioned in connection with a police investigation into the death of mother-of-10 Jean McConville in the 1970s. The academic mentioned the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa and explained that this restorative justice approach was too controversial to be used in Northern Ireland. To offer offenders amnesty in return for telling the truth and participating in a conversation with victims was not something which was likely to be acceptable. People who have been profoundly hurt want justice to be done - and letting the offender off does not look like justice.
The attitude of Helen Prejean - that offenders are humans loved by God and not beyond his mercy - is a courageous and costly one. To confront evil with love rather than a sword goes against all natural impulses. And yet perhaps evil becomes less frightening when evildoers, instead of being demonised, are recognised as fallen - and loved - human beings.
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