Vigil Held During Religious Education Congress
CPF organized the 11th annual Public Witness to End the Death Penalty on Saturday, March 1st in Anaheim, CA.
We gathered about 60 supporters and Congress attendees to pray for an end to state sanctioned murder. We were joined by speakers Bishop Tod Brown of the Diocese of Orange, author Edwina Gateley, and a former Chaplain to San Quentin death row inmates. Bishop Brown stressed the role of compassion in the life of a Christian toward victims and accused alike. Edwina Gateley expressed outrage at the abomination of enabling our government to end our God-given right to life. A human face was given to those on death row by the Chaplain who ministered to them and their life struggle. During the march down Convention Way that followed the prayer service, we passed out copies of Sister Helen Prejean’s “A Prayer to Abolish the Death Penalty.”
The Religious Education Congress is the nation's largest annual gathering of Roman Catholics – with about 40,000 people in attendance!
A Prayer to Abolish the Death Penalty
God of Compassion,
You let your rain fall on the just and the unjust.
Expand and deepen our hearts
so that we may love as You love,
even those among us
who have caused the greatest pain by taking life.
For there is in our land a great cry for vengeance
as we fill up death rows and kill the killers
in the name of justice, in the name of peace.
Jesus, our brother,
you suffered execution at the hands of the state
but you did not let hatred overcome you.
Help us to reach out to victims of violence
so that our enduing love may help them heal.
Holy Spirit of God,
You strengthen us in the struggle for justice.
Help us to work tirelessly
for the abolition of state-sanctioned death
and to renew our society in its very heart
so that violence will be no more. Amen.
-Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J