Religion & Ethics Newsweekly: Prison Ministry and Chaplaincy in the "Death Capital"

by Danny Fisher

This past week, PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly rebroadcast a story from 2003 about ministry and chaplaincy to prisoners on death row, their families, their victims’ families, and prison personnel in Huntsville, TX.

Reintroducing the story, guest anchor Kim Lawton began by saying:

    Across the country, more than 3,000 inmates are on death row waiting to be executed or reprieved. So far this year (2007), nine executions have taken place in America, eight of them in Texas, which for several years now has executed more prisoners than any other state. All executions in Texas occur in one place — Huntsville.

It is an extremely powerful segment, including a fairly wide range of opinions and responses–I felt intermittedly moved and frustrated. I was also especially affected by the story of Paula Kurland and Jonathan Nobles. Anyway, I recommend taking a look at it.

Actually, this week’s entire episode of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly was particularly relevant for Buddhists interested or engaged in chaplaincy: also rebroadcast were stories about the late Yale University chaplain William Sloane Coffin and the creation of a Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala.