On Helen Prejean's new book

Greg has a good post on the good Sister's new book. I recently purchased "The Death of Innocents" and have been working on it. It is so grim, however, that I struggle. I wonder about those people in the prison system who are tasked with the actual killing and wonder what cost we are taking from them. I wonder about the families of the executed and how awful their experience must be. Yes, I share the grief of the victim's family and know their grief is monstrous. I simply reject the idea that somehow more death will help them in anyway.

"I suppose you could read this book and come away thinking, 'Bah, she's a damned liberal. Fry those bastards.' I don't know how, but I've learned that evidence isn't often convincing to those who are already inclined to believe something else. What you should come away with, at least, is a deep skepticism about our nation's ability to ever make the death penalty 'fair.' She is very hard on W and our new Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who was Bush's legal counsel while he was Governor of Texas, a position he used to preside over the most executions by a governor in modern history. Those who want to hold forth about Bush's Christian pedigree need to read that section very closely."

I am struck by how common it is among conservative Christians to support this flawed, racist and class biased system. We see more and more evidence that the system is flawed, yet people still support it and punish politicians who dare to speak out against it. I understand that many of these criminals are deeply evil people. I know they are hard to sympathize with. But isn't that the call to the Church? To love the unlovable? To speak for those left out of the system? It is easy to love the cute child. Much harder to extend that to the hardened criminal.