Nun Known For Work With Death Row Inmates Visits Madison

Sister Helen Prejean, a catholic nun famous for working with death row inmates, is in Madison this weekend for the performance of an opera based on her book, “Dead Man Walking.”

It’s been almost 20 years since the movie based on Prejean’s book premiered. The opera premiered in San Francisco in the fall of 2000 and has been performed more than 50 times since then.

Prejean says her primary goal since she began her death row work in 1982 has been to raise public awareness about ending the death penalty. She cites a recent CNN poll that found that 68 percent of people in their early 30s who identify as Christians oppose the death penalty.

“That’s our young people, and that is a really big shift,” said Prejean. “And for those who are practicing their faith it’s even stronger.”

She added: “I think part of that is that we just are a practical people and we’re looking out and we don’t see any difference in the violence rate in states that have the death penalty. Wisconsin doesn’t. People are beginning to get it.”

Wisconsin abolished the death penalty for state crimes in 1853. Since then, numerous efforts to reinstate it have failed.

Prejean says she thinks media attention to her work is beginning to have an impact on public support for the death penalty. She says even in non-death penalty states like Wisconsin, the opera still has the power to move people because the central themes are universal.

“Everybody knows to have someone you love hurt, and our response is going to be one of trying to get even or to hurt them, or to respond out of another place,” said Prejean. “All of us know that.”

She says the opera even more than the movie requires the audience to empathize with both the family of the murder victims, and with the murderer and his family in a way that moves many people to shift their view of the death penalty.