Learning How to Forgive: Senior Ethics Students Debate the Death Penalty

Seniors taking Christian Ethics and Catholic Morality this semester just wrapped up a unit on capital punishment, including looking at it through the lens of Catholic social teaching.

Last week, they heard from a leading figure who spoke from the heart when opposing the death penalty: Jeanne Bishop, a Cook County public defender, author and human rights activist.

Bishop spoke to about 70 seniors, faculty and staff members in the Alumni Memorial Chapel. The event was voluntary, but students were eager to hear her firsthand testimony.

Back in 1990, three members of Bishop’s family were murdered in Winnetka, including her sister, brother-in-law, and her sister's unborn baby. The family members were shot at point blank and the horrific nature of their murders made national news.

Bishop told the group of how she struggled for years to come to terms with the crime and her anger with the killer. However, in 2015, she wrote a book about her own transformation, called, “Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy, and Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer.” 

Since then, Bishop has become an active member of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, publicly advocating for forgiveness and reconciliation, violence prevention and reform of the criminal justice system to make it more merciful.

“Based on the nature and significant number of questions students asked Jeanne, students were very moved by her personal story and witness to Gospel values in face of one of the most challenging situations,” said Br. Peter Lamick, C.S.V. ’07 who teaches Ethics.

“Through her own personal story and current advocacy work, Jeanne synthesized all of the subtopics and central facets of the Church's teaching about capital punishment,” Br. Peter added. “Her testimony and articulation of Christian values in the face of violence presented an arresting talk that helped our students understand that the Church's teaching can, and indeed, needs to be lived out in our society.” 

Teachers and staff were just as moved by her conversion as the students. Br. Michael Gosch, C.S.V. ’74 who is a former English teacher at Saint Viator and a current member of its Board of Governors, summed up her presentation this way: “It was excellent.”