Sister Helen Prejean who have been fighting against the death penalty punishment for several years now visited the Holy Father on Thursday to deliver a “Thank-you” letter to the Pope from Richard Glossip, whose execution in the U.S. was halted in September after intervention from the pontiff.
Richard Glossip was convicted and condemned after being found guilty of hiring an assassin to kill a motel owner .
Few hours before the meeting between Sister Prejean and the Holy Father, an inmate, Richard Masterson, was put to death in Texas. Masterson was convicted for killing Darin Honeycutt in 2001.
When Sister Prejean broke the news about Masterson to the Holy Father, he felt compassionate and bitter that nothing could had stopped it.
“I said, ‘They killed him.’ And he (Francis) lowered his eyes and said, ‘I pray, I pray.’ He really feels for people on death row,” Prejean reported.
The Holy Father during his visit to the USA voiced out his oppositions against Capital Punishment and pleaded for ‘justice with mercy’.
“Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty,” he said. “Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation,” Francis told lawmakers in September 2015.
Wow, that sounds like good music