Writing lifelines to death row
WHEN LENORA GOODLIFFE'S GRANDDAUGHTER recently came to visit, the girl very much admired a painting in Goodliffe's house and asked if she could have it. The ensuing conversation turned into one of those famous "teachable moments." The painting was a gift to Goodliffe from a new friend, a death-row inmate she has been writing to.
"It still makes my husband real nervous," Goodliffe admits. "He's not sure if he likes me to be acquainted with someone who's on death row." She was prompted to write to the prisoner about a year ago by her parish, St. Bernadette in Fuquaw-Varina, North Carolina. Along with a few other parishioners and many more from parishes throughout the Raleigh, North Carolina diocese, Goodliffe responded to an invitation to participate in Project Link, a ministry of an interfaith program called People of Faith Against the Death Penalty.
"It's not an earth-shattering response," says Goodliffe, who writes about twice a month. "But it means a lot to this one person. Before I got involved with Project Link I hadn't really given much thought to the issue of capital punishment. But that has changed since I have gotten to know someone on death row.
"It has really come home to me that we as the people of North Carolina intend to take this man's life. State executions are conscious, premeditated acts, and they're done in our name. All my life I have been taught that it is wrong to take someone's life, so this feels very wrong to me and I pray a lot about it."
According to Franciscan Sister Joan Jurski, Raleigh's diocesan director of peace and justice, all Catholic parishes in the diocese have been approached with a request to host a presentation about Project Link, and many have done so. Usually two or three people at such events volunteer to start corresponding with death-row inmates. Many later also visit their "pen pals."
All participants are asked to make a long-term commitment. "Otherwise you may become another source of disappointment, betrayal, and abandonment," the project's orientation sheet warns.
The motivation for Project Link is expressed clearly in its mission statement: "Project Link is a ministry of companionship that links people of faith with persons on death row....This ministry reaches out to some of the most abandoned and forgotten in the criminal-justice system of North Carolina. We commit ourselves to this project of companionship because we believe that no person is without dignity and outside the scope of God's love."
Outside of North Carolina, a similar interfaith organization, the Death Row Support Project (DRSP), has worked for 19 years to provide support through correspondence to those sentenced to death in the United States. Through DRSP over 2,000 people have corresponded with or visited death-row prisoners.
Carmelite Brother Patrick Byrd in San Antonio, Texas has also started a pen-friend ministry to people on death row and is currently looking for people to join him in this effort.
For information about Project Link, contact: Sister Joan Jurski, Office of Peace and Justice, Diocese of Raleigh, 300 Cardinal Gibbons Dr., Raleigh, NC 27606-2198. Phone: 919-821-9751.
For information about DRSP, contact: Rachel Gross, P.O. Box 600, Liberty Mills, IN 46946. Phone: 219-982-7751.
For information on the Carmelite initiative, contact: Brother Patrick Byrd, O.C.D., Discalced Carmelite Monastery, P.O. Box 5280, San Antonio, TX 78201. E-mail: brpatric@texas.net.
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