Dead Man Walking heroine Sister Helen Prejean coming to North
Nov 12 2009 by Joanne Butcher, The Journal
THE committed campaigner behind an Oscar-winning film is coming to the North East.
Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote Dead Man Walking, the book behind the Hollywood film of the same name, is set to speak to over 4,000 young people from the region about her life-changing experiences.
The Event 09, which begins today at the Rainton Meadows Arena in Houghton-le-Spring, addresses forgiveness and meaning in life.
Organised by the Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, the conference also features peace campaigner Bud Welch, whose 23-year-old daughter was one of those killed in the 1995 Oklahoma Bombings in the US, Abbot Christopher Jamison, who featured in the TV documentary The Monastery, and British speaker David Wells.
Sr Prejean began working as a spiritual adviser to prisoners on death row in New Orleans after writing to convicted rapist and murderer Elmo Patrick Sonnier.
Her correspondence with Sonnier, who was on death row, led the nun to question the death penalty. She eventually took on the US justice system, and the teaching of the Catholic church, to oppose it.
Her story was captured in her book and made into a 1995 film starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, who won an Oscar for the role.
