Sister Helen Prejean, the most prominent anti-death penalty campaigner in the United States, has delivered a blistering rebuke of President Donald Trump, accusing him of using violent language, spreading fear and pushing for more executions across the country.
The 87-year-old Catholic nun singled out Mr Trump’s move, during his first term in the White House, to lift a 17-year moratorium on federal executions as a defining and deeply troubling decision.
Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week, she said: “Within those six months [at the end of his presidency] he had them all killed – 13 of them. His decision alone. And he has set a tone in the country, because he’s always calling for people to be executed.”
Sr Helen said she has now witnessed eight executions and personally knew some of the 13 inmates put to death under Donald Trump’s orders.
In the United States, 47 inmates were executed last year, the highest annual figure in 16 years, with Florida responsible for 40% of that total.
Sr Helen said executions in America cannot be separated from the country’s history of racism.
“If you look at the pattern in the United States, the states that have done over 70% of the executions are the ex slave states. Because racism is so baked into the death penalty. It makes a huge difference on who’s killed. And overwhelmingly it’s about white victims.”
She said the “work” of her campaign was to show people the deep flaws built into capital punishment and to persuade voters to stop electing prosecutors and governors who support executions.
Sr Helen also condemned Alabama’s new execution method, in which inmates are killed through nitrogen suffocation, describing it as harsh and violent while saying prison officials try to “mask” its cruelty by acting as though they are simply “putting people to sleep.”
Sr Helen said Pope Leo and his predecessor Pope Francis have given fresh force to the abolitionist message
She said it took the Catholic Church “1,500 years of dialogue” to reject the idea that the state has the right to take a life, adding that Pope Francis, and now Pope Leo, had “made a difference” by speaking clearly for abolition.
“Now we got a Pope that has a great microphone for the world.”
Asked about US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth urging Pentagon staff in March to pray for “overwhelming violence” against Iran “in the name of Jesus Christ”, Sr Helen said: “It’s such a perversion of the gospel of Jesus.”
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon in March
She said Irish visitors to the United States should be seen as “diplomats and ambassadors for peace.”
“Ireland, I think, is a gleaming beam of light in the world, in what you have done in abolishing the death penalty and then educating your citizens. There’s a sense of peace in this country. I love coming to Ireland.”
Sr Helen came to global prominence after her bestselling book ‘Dead Man Walking’, recounting her experience of witnessing two executions, was adapted into a 1995 film, with Susan Sarandon winning the Oscar for ‘Best Actress in a leading role’.
Sr Helen was in Dublin this week to receive an honorary doctorate of laws from Trinity College Dublin.
