David Barrett's excellent piece for the magazine and Fr. Malachy's talk at Mass encouraged me to share my experience of death row ministry.
Paul reminds us in Corinthians that we are nothing without love. There is a line in a song from Les Miserables which says to love another person is to see the face of God. John the Apostle says ‘God is love’
As Christians we are given a new Commandment We are to love one another as God has loved us. Unfortunately this means loving those the world has rejected. I write of the murderer, the rapist, the child molester and the most despised of all, the burglar.
In the closing days of 1999 I went to an evening of reflections on the passing Century. Included in those reflections was the reading of a death row diary. Sean Sellars was 16 when he committed the crime for which he was killed by the state of Oklahoma. I had a sense that Sean really felt remorse for what he had done. Who knows the result if he had been allowed to live. In January 2000 I wrote my first letter to the American Embassy expressing my concern at the execution of juveniles. The Supreme Court abolished such executions earlier this year along with those of the mentally retarded.
In June 2000 I began to write to Dennis Bagwell, a condemned inmate in Texas. He was 37 and had been on the row since 1995. Over the years we became good friends. He was the absent guest at our table and was always present in our home. He never forgot a birthday. One of the saddest things I had to do was to watch my son open a birthday card from a man who had been dead for 10 days. Dennis was killed on Feb 17th 2005. I miss him so much and still think of things to tell him about.
I now have two very new friendships, one in North Carolina and one in Nevada. I pray they will grow.
This ministry was one of the most spiritually rewarding things I have ever done. It spawned other things which were spiritually challenging.
A year or so ago I was asked by a Quaker friend if I would take part in a pilot project called ‘Circles of Support and Accountability’. This was an idea which came from the Mennonite Community in Canada. It would be tried in England using mainly people of faith.
The basic idea is that released sex offenders often face greater problems than other released inmates. The concept of a Circle of friends willing to support a willing Core Member get back into society is an interesting one. I have been involved in such a situation and in such a group. It allows the offender to address his offending behaviour in a non judgmental non legal environment. He is however held accountable and if he misbehaves the ‘Circle’ can have him put back in the ‘system’. It is not an easy option.
I will close with a favourite few lines of Scripture:
‘Be not afraid of entertaining strangers, for many have met Angels without knowing it…’ (Heb. 13:1-3) - and the reflection that my friends may not be Angels—but they are not Monsters, either.
Richard Crier