The spiritual journey behind Sr. Helen Prejean’s fight to end the death penalty

The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.

America Media

Christianity, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Host James Martin, S.J., welcomes famed anti-death penalty advocate, Sister Helen Prejean, onto “The Spiritual Life” podcast. Their conversation spans: How Sister Helen first became a chaplain to a death-row inmate, Pat Sonnier, and then a leading advocate to abolish the death penalty Catholic teaching on the inviolable dignity of the human person and the true meaning of forgiveness Discerning what to say “yes” and “no” to in the spiritual life, with the help of Ignatian spirituality Sr. Helen’s spiritual practice of quiet listening, reading, meditation and prayer. Read Fr. James' spiritual advice column about this episode Do you have a spiritual question for Fr. Jim? You can write to us at: thespirituallife@americamedia.org Check out Fr. James' new book "Work In Progress" here: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/jamesmartin Become a subscriber today at Americamagazine.org/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.1	Where is the dignity in the death of deliberate death of a human being that we have rendered
0:37.0	completely defenseless and then deliberately
0:40.2	kill them. Where is the dignity in that death? Or does a Catholic church only uphold the dignity
0:46.0	of innocent life? What about guilty people? What about their dignity?
0:55.4	Welcome to the spiritual life.
0:57.2	I'm Father Jim Martin.
0:58.5	On this podcast, we reflect on how people experience God in their prayer and in their daily lives.
1:04.4	And I'm joined by my wonderful producer, Maggie Van Doren.
1:07.9	Maggie, good to be back with you.
1:09.5	It's great to be with you, Jim. Yeah, and we're really excited. This is someone on our show who I've thought, as soon as we started this podcast, we have to have her on, and it is the great Sister Helen Prejean. Can you tell us a little bit about this sort of mutual hero of ours? Yeah, she's a legend. Sister Helen Prejean is a member of the congregation of St. Joseph.
1:30.3	She's known worldwide for sparking a dialogue on the death penalty and as the Catholic
1:35.3	sister who wrote the best-selling book, Dead Man Walking, which was made into a 1995
1:41.3	Oscar-winning film.
1:42.3	And then not long ago, it was made into a play, an opera, and now a graphic book.
1:48.0	Sister Helen uses storytelling to bring citizens close to the hard realities of government killings.
	...

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