Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Julia Gets Wise with Sister Helen Prejean

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

On today’s episode of Wiser Than Me, Julia connects with 86-year-old death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean. They discuss her joyful Southern childhood, early ambitions, and why she can’t put a little money down on her favorite card games – even though she really wants to. Sister Helen reflects on her political awakening, decades fighting the death penalty, and lessons about people and power. Plus, Julia asks her 91-year-old mom, Judy, about attending Catholic grade school and remembers her own childhood Catholic makeover.    Follow Wiser Than Me on Instagram and TikTok @wiserthanme and on Facebook at facebook.com/wiserthanmepodcast. Find us on Substack at wiserthanme.substack.com.    Keep up with Sister Helen @helenprejean on Instagram.   Find out more about other shows on our network at @lemonadamedia on all social platforms.   Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today by hitting 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or lemonadapremium.com for any other app.   For exclusive discount codes and more information about our sponsors, visit https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/.    For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Head over to wiser than me shop.com to grab yours now. Okay, here's the show. There are two things about living in Santa Barbara, California, that I just love. One is that we live really close to the actual wilderness, so there are actual wild animals all around us. And the second thing is, up in the hills, there's a beautiful little Vedanta temple whose residents are all nuns. In fact, this was the first place in America that women took their final Hindu monastic vows. The temple has been in quiet use since 1947 up there in the rugged hills where, God, we've seen coyotes and big buck deer and little bobcats and a ton of fox and rattlesnakes. And we've even seen a huge black bear.

What we have not seen with our own eyes is a mountain line. So we often walk our dog up in the hills, and one morning our friend Tanya, who lives really close to the temple and has a great wildlife camera, showed us two just unbelievable video clips from the night before of not one but two gorgeous mountain lines on their property. Now, you have to understand something. These are proper lions. I mean, like, you know, Serengeti lions that you would see out in the bush. You know, they're huge, and they have that black-tipped tail, the muscled, tan body, those beady eyes, the teeth of an African line. I mean, they are so beautiful, and let's not forget, dangerous. They are at the absolute top of the food chain.

I mean, actually, I once had a park ranger tell me that if a mountain line really wanted to kill you, you'd never see. see them because they're that fast and that stealthy and that lethal. We agreed with our friend that for a few days at least we'd walk in pairs up there and make a lot of noise, you know, just to be safe. So that same day, we walk a little further with our dog and around the corner comes, no, not a line, but one of the nuns from the temple. It was Krishna Prana, who was out for her morning walk. She walks every morning after morning. morning prayers at sunrise. And we're always happy to see the nuns. They're funny and interesting and very curious. All of the nuns from the temple are getting on in years. They're all well over

the wiser than me, 70-year-old Mark. Their convent is right below the wildlife camera that spotted the mountain line. So we wanted to warn them that this creature was lurking and that she should spread the word to other nuns that they should keep vigilant. Just be careful, I said, because he's out there. And Krishna Prana smiled and said, I know, isn't it wonderful? We were having lunch on Wednesday out in the garden, all of us together. And this giant, beautiful line came walking straight through right in the middle of the day. There he was. Oh, I hope you get to see him. And then off she went down the street toward the convent, just as cool as can be. And, you know, I mean, we were filled with fear, and she was filled with wonder.

Hilarious. These nuns live a deeply devotional life. They meditate, garden, counsel, hold morning prayers, and vespers. Their exceptional order emphasizes that there are many ways and many faiths that lead to the same truth. They live in the Sarada convent named after the Hindu goddess of wisdom. They are, I think it's fair to say, professionally wise. And you can feel it, even in just, you know, the friendly little chats that I'm lucky enough to have with them. So is it any surprise, really, that their contact with the lion felt just like a parable?

They were having lunch, and the lion came to visit, and they were unafraid. I mean, sometimes wisdom and bravery are the things. same. In fact, I'm pretty certain they are the same. How lucky we are then to talk today with Sister Helen Prejohn. I'm Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. Today's one of the most powerful moral voices of our time. For over four decades, she has stood witness to the darkest corners of our justice system, serving as a spiritual advisor to death row inmates and fighting to abolish capital punishment in America.

Sister Helen Prejean belongs to the Sisters of St. Joseph, an order with courageous history. Its founder, Mother Jean Fontaine, narrowly escaped execution during the French Revolution after five of her fellow nuns had already been killed. As you can see, courage runs in Sister Helen's lineage. Her life's work might not have been possible without Vatican II, the 1960s council that shook up the Catholic Church, pushed it to reckon with the modern world, and crucially, opened new space for women on the inside. Her 1993 memoir, Dead Man Walking, transformed the national conversation about the death penalty, recounting her experiences accompanying men on death row and providing spiritual guidance in their final day. It was adapted into the acclaimed 1995 film, earning Susan Sarandon an Academy Award, and Helen also just released a beautiful graphic novel version last October. Helen has accompanied eight men to their executions, counseled families, and founded

the Ministry Against the Death Penalty. Through her advocacy, she's influenced the Catholic Church's position on the death penalty, which is now considered inadmissible in all cases. She's worked tirelessly and successfully, helping shape the moral and political pressure around capital punishment that contributed to President Biden's decision to commute 37 federal death sentences

to life without parole and to reinforce his moratorium on federal executions. She really moved the needle. Well into her eighth decade, she continues the sacred difficult cult work with extraordinary grace and an unexpected sense of humor. She's a truth-teller, an agitator for mercy, and one of the fiercest advocates for human dignity alive today. This is one nun who is definitely wiser than me. Sister Helen Prejean, welcome to Wiser Than Me.

Hey, what a great title. Thank you. I'm glad to be clumped into that category. Yeah. Although we've got to see that. You sound pretty wise so far. So let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. I think you're going to teach me a lot today. Are you comfortable if I ask your real age? Oh, sure. 86. 86. How old do you feel? I don't know how to tell you that, but there's a whole part of me that feels young because I'm curious and always learning and very engaged in creative change in the country. I think that kind of keeps you young, huh? Yeah, the curiosity keeps you youthful, I think. At least that's my experience talking to. Well, no, and yeah, you're always learning.

Yes, and I do want to get to your life and to your work, but I'm really curious about something. What do you do for fun? For fun. Here's what I do for fun. Me with friends, we played this great card game, Louisiana card game called Beat Your Ass. I get together with friends with fixed meals.

We just went out to the lake to, take three days. I love to look at movies. I love to read books. Love to be with friends. I love to cook. I'm a good cook, Joe. You ever come to New Orleans. I'm going to cook for you. What are you going to cook me? I'm going to cook some good stuff like gumbo. I'm going to cook you some good gumbo. I'm going to cook you some good stewed chicken with rice. I'm going to cook you some red beans and rice. Well, okay. Not too spicy, please. You know what the secret of our Cajun cooking is, it's seasoning. It didn't just making stuff hot. Don't you be eating

any Cajun food over at a Yankee restaurant because all they're going to do is blacken it and you're not going to know how old that fish is you eating. Don't do that. All right, I won't. I'm coming to you. When you come to us, yes. Well, how does beat your ass work? It's really, the

real name of it is called Polish rummy and it's basically gin rummy. Got it. Do you bet? I would love to bet, but they don't want to bet money. I think if you bet money it always adds to the zest of the game. I do too. They don't want to do that. You've got to get friends who'll bet. You know what? I heard Maya Angelou when she was writing a book, when she'd come to our last

chapter, she'd check in a hotel. And then in between writing, she'd play solitaire. She said, to occupy her little mind. We've got to occupy our little mind sometimes. Yes, we do have to occupy our little mind. I want to talk about your background. if I may, because I know that you had a childhood that you described as very joyful. Yes. And that your mom, who was called Gustame, it couldn't be more Southern, you describe her as having a great sense of humor and being very charming. And I think you had a lot of fun as a kid. And I understand your dad taught you to argue.

He was an attorney, is that correct? Right, correct. So talk about how he taught you to argue because that is a great skill set. Oh, it is. Yeah. And we also had a great high school, St. Joseph Academy in Baton Rouge, and our sisters taught us to think and how to do public speaking. So anyway, yeah, so with Daddy, honey, he said, you can't just do it on emotion.

When you're arguing, you've got to know your facts. and you want to try to present him in a persuasive way. And whenever we had family gatherings or anything, Daddy would say, Louis, Lewis, speech, speech. Let's have a speech from Lewis, so public speaking. But in argument, you've got to have facts. But the storytelling part of how you tell the facts, and maybe that has been the draw of that man walking,

I hesitated to write a book for years because I thought, well, they have books out there, But they were books done by experts. They were statistical. Here's all the things wrong. And you need story. Yeah, always. So you've got to know this, Julia.

So while Tim Robbins was working on the screenplay of the movie, he kept saying, the nun is in over her head. And I wasn't over my head. Yeah. So the reader, when they go to read Dead Man Walking, they can see, I'm over my head, but I'm learning. And I think that's an attraction. and that leads people to read a book

because they think, well, the nun doesn't know what she's doing either. Let's see what happens. They relate to her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because who knows much about this thing? Except we had these strong feelings. Look what they did and they ought to die kind of thing. And you want to get past that.

Yeah. So, Daddy taught me that about facts. He also loved words. They grew up on a plantation. They were very poor. And he had a dictionary. And every day he had memorized the words. on that dictionary. So there was a love of words and there was always wordplay. It still goes

on. Wordplay in our family, you know, of just loving words. Hey, what were their politics? Totally democratic in the good sense. I mean, like they were Roosevelt people. And they were daddy participated in campaigns of governors that cared about the rights of Cajun people in Louisiana. And he had a heart because he grew up poor himself. But what they weren't conscious of was we grew up in a big house. So this is in the 40s and 50s, Jim Crow. And the only way I knew African-American people growing up was as our servants. I never went to school with black kids.

I was never in social settings with black people. So it was only as our servants. and never questioned Jim Crow. I didn't have a social conscience yet. Yes. And Mama would say things, well, like, honey, they like to be with their own kind. We like to be with our own kind. Interesting.

And in my own realization, which I put in my memoir, my spiritual autobiography, culture really determines how we see things, how we hear things, what we see, what we don't see, that led me to leave. the suburbs and live in the inner city in New Orleans. And then I really began to wake up because I met African-American people as my peers, as my peers. Was your family religious growing up? Yeah, very. Very. Very Catholic. Very Catholic. And your brother and sister as well? Mm-hmm. Very. Was anyone surprised in your family when you said I'm going to be a nun? Oh, they were happy about it.

They were happy. Yeah, because, I mean, super Catholic. They hoped they'd get a priest, maybe a nun. Oh. I just really never could picture myself, marrying one old man, heaven, one old family. I like wanted to go wide. And the sisters.

Did you say want to go wide? Was that the word? Wide, in love. And being able to love a wide assortment of people. Oh, I see. Yeah. And, you know, it's so funny that you, for instance, I have friends who are Catholic, and they talk about going to Catholic school,

and they talk about the nuns, like the nuns, like the nuns were mean. I'm sure you've heard that trope before, right? Oh, absolutely. And the ruler nuns. Right. Yeah, they had mean nuns. But you didn't have that experience that sounded like. No, not at all. At all. Yeah. And I knew I didn't want to be a mean nun, and I love the kids I taught. Oh, yes. I'm sure you did. Absolutely. But you said that you were, you were born with a kind of. of ambition. And you said that when you're young, you said you're either going to be president or the Pope. So talk about that ambition. Although I think I know the answer. I've only talked to you now for 10 minutes and I think I know. Where does that ambition show up now? I know the

answer. I think we all do. Well, it was, you wanted to do something great. Yes. So I did announce that to my eighth grade class. I'd just like to announce I'm either going to be the Pope or the president. Y'all can mark it down. I'm on my way. Did everybody laugh? Oh, yeah. Of course they laughed. But let me tell you what nunhood taught me. Now, these are nuns before Vatican II. You have to understand. I know, which we have to talk about that. Guess what that did to ambition. Go become a nun. You are blindly obedient, whatever the superior tells you to do. You're quiet. You never speak out of turn. You know, You know, you're quiet, you're submissive.

It played into the whole feminine thing, too, that women are passive. So the best way to be holy is to be obedient. I never thought when I entered the religious life, the sisters of St. Joseph in 57. I was ever going to make another decision for my life again? I was only going to be unobedient night. Was that happy for you? Was that something like I'm psyched about that?

Yeah. Oh, I totally went into it. Really? I totally wanted to be holy. Really? I totally bought into it. it. And the silence didn't hurt me. Learning to pray didn't hurt me. Yeah. And learning to just give up my own will for a while to trust the wisdom of others and did not hurt me. It could

hurt you if you stayed in it. But guess what changed it? Along comes Vatican II in the Catholic Church, the Reform Ecumenical Council, which changed things. And that's 1960 what? Two to 65. And it changed things for non-speaking. because it was each person to discern how God's moving in your soul so that you could freely start to think, what do I want to do? What do I feel I'm called to do? And that's how I could have the freedom

to get involved with the death penalty and to move into a poor neighborhood. What am I being called to do? Like the decision to write the book of Dead Man Walking, Our provincial superior at the time was Barbara Hughes. She really had to stretch because nobody had written a book before. Well, we didn't have a nun going on death row, even having these experiences. Right, right.

So it entails sisterly trust that here I'm saying, I need to devote a year or two to write this book, and she could trust me. So communities built on trust. So before Vatican 2, can you describe what wearing the nun's habit was like? Can you describe that for the people who are listening? Because I am just mesmerized by this. And rightly so. Yeah, talk.

And rightly so. Because we had seven pieces of cloth on our head. We had the Surret, we had the Bando, you know, and then you had two veils. Then you had these long black sleeves. This is three and a half yards of black surge for the habit. What does surge mean? Is that a kind of wool? Yeah, it's a kind of heavy fabric.

And that reached all the way down to your toes. In fact, one of our sisters was in a clothing store where they sold, you know, material. Yes. And she was standing there. Then she could feel somebody feeling her veil in the back and turned around because the lady thought she was a blooming bowl. the material. And in the way we were, like the Baltimore. Oh, God, it was hot in the summer, you know. Yeah, I mean, it was in Louisiana, was it not? Absolutely. You must have been boiling.

We were. Picture two nuns getting on the bus in July and New Orleans. No. And one lady on the bus said, oh, look at the sisters. They like always fresh as daisies, because we had white around us. And Gert, one of our really funny sisters said, kid, precious daisies, what's that rolling down my life? I mean, we were sweating like that. But here's the thing, Julie, when you go into a way of life, that's what was asked. Yes.

Leaving my mom and daddy and never being able to visit the family home. It was asked of you. And I just did it because I was in it, and I wanted what it would give me. So the unfolding and unfurling, into real personhood that happened after Vatican 2, it's just then all of me could really flower, decision-making, discerning.

Were you homesick at first? Oh, my God. I couldn't think of my mom and dad. I had to say goodbye to them. And, of course, we cried all the way to the Orleans, all the way to the Navitian. And see, as Catholic parents for them, they were giving over to God their daughter.

who would serve the church and so it was a gift from them too and well it was just they could come see you once a month and what did you have to talk about I mean you know it was like we did the best we could but I got very pious I looked at oh God I looked at some of the letters I wrote home during the division

and mom and daddy my high point of the day is going to Mass with our precious Lord and going to the Eucharie It was so pious and out of touch. It's time for a break. More with Sister Helen Prejean in just a moment. And by the way, we just launched a Wiser Than Me newsletter where you can get behind the scenes details

from my conversation with Sister Helen and more. You can subscribe now at wiser than me.substack.com. You'll get photos and videos, letters from me, think exclusive bonus snippets, glimpses behind the scenes of the making of the podcast, a real deep dive into every guest, plus a place to connect with other Wiser Than Me listeners. I hope you subscribe at wiser than me.substack.com and stick around to see what we have in store. Be right back. Everywhere you look, someone's telling you the right way to get protein. Tofu, chicken, salmon, powders, bars, shhers. shakes, even things like protein water. The options are endless and so is the noise. And honestly, most days, it's overwhelming. You just want something that's quick, reliable, and actually

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nuns, you mean? Yes. Interesting. So here we are the traditional life in the habit, for example. So now we're looking at saying the habit is a great symbol for people. We're dedicated to God. But in another way, it separates us from people. That's right. Because they think of nuns like on a pedestal, holy nuns, so they watch what they say around you. that to really be with the people, and Vatican II had redefined the church, so we were part of the people of God, so the decision was made. We need to dress like everybody else. Even Jesus didn't dress in his special little rabbi suit or something.

I happen to be the son of God, I'm undressed special, treat me with respect. But it was huge, huge discussion. I mean, sisters that had lived the traditional sisterly life, Now we're not going to be dressed like nuns anymore. I mean, it's like they felt you were losing it. We're losing our identity as nuns. It was fierce. It was huge.

Yeah, change is so hard. Oh, it is. How did you figure out, like, even what to wear at that point? We went through a lot of revised standard versions of being a nun. I mean, at first it was just really simple, like a black skirt. And the first thing we did was start taking our parts of the veil. to show our hair. But the kids, man, the kids are going, they go, none's got there. The nun's got hair. Oh, my God. It was just a lot. Hey, did you ever see the sound of music?

Everybody saw the sound of music. I know. Well, I'm just wondering, because I didn't, I don't know what you were out and seeing. Did you like the sound of music? Well, of course I love the sound of music. But I'm going to tell you, at the end of it, I went, this ain't going to do much for non-le vocations because she married to God. And Sister Act was full. fun too, but since I've had some good stuff in it. I love Whoopi Goldberg. Yeah, Whoopi Goldberg's amazing. You know, Pope Francis was a huge fan of Whoopi Goldberg's because of that movie. He loved that movie. No kidding. Yeah. He did. I hear Pope Leo likes the sound of music. Does he? Yeah. I'm kind of jumping around, but I did want to ask you another question about Pope Leo.

I know you wrote that letter to Pope Francis about... Women in the church. That's right. Yes, yes. And he did not respond favorably to your letter. And will you tell our listeners what the letter was about? And then my question is, are you going to send that letter to Pope Leo, which I hope you will? Well, here's the thing. I mean, we can have all these discussions in the church now. Just like the death penalty finally changed where the church came to the recognition,

you can't give the state the right to take life because they'll set up. of their system. Same thing is going to happen with women. It's inevitable because we and our life experience can see that women have as much wisdom or more. And the point to Pope Francis in the letter was that you're depriving women's presence, their insights, their experience at all the policymaking that's done in the church. It's all males, only priests, only bishops, making big policy. decisions. So we're cutting off from the church a wholeness of wisdom that we can get from the women. Women can't even preach at mass. And I said, look, I've given talks before the United Nations. I've given talks in churches and synagogues. But in my own Catholic church, I can't even

proclaim the gospel. It has to be a male to proclaim the gospel. And I can't preach in my own church. The way it's done is, oh, after the homily, which only the priests can do, women can give a reflection after communion. So it's beginning to edge in, but the reason it's ultimately going to prevail is just simply because women have too much wisdom. What's the title of you show? More wisdom than I got? Well, women, of course, are going to bring their wisdom to decision-making in the church and help make the church whole. And as long as that's deprived, in the church of that voice and that wisdom, we're never going to be whole. Because when all those little males get together and it's only little males doing stuff,

not as good. Just get a few women in there. Well, I like that you say deprived because really the men are deprived. I mean, women are deprived, but then men are deprived of the wisdom of the other gender. And that's a huge loss for them. And that's actually why we're doing this podcast because... Is it? Yes.

Yes. because the whole premise is that older women in our society, particularly older women, become more and more invisible as they age. And they have all this wisdom to share. And so we need to put a spotlight on older women and hear what they have to say. Well, daggone. Well, yeah. You're on a good track, Julia. This is a good track. Thank you. Thank you, Sister Helen. So you were 40 years old then, I believe, when you did an about-face regarding social justice. Right. I woke up.

You woke up. So can you talk about that moment in your life? I can. Please. So we're in a community with experiences. We had sisters in Latin America where all the death squads were terrible things were going on in Central America. When Reagan became Pope, I mean, when Reagan... Oh, no, please not.

No, no, please. No, it was just as harsh policies because the big companies were exploiting the heck out of these people and getting all their, so the politics followed. And so we tended to support these dictators in Central American people were being killed. So our missionaries are there and they come into our community meetings and they begin to share that consciousness with us just simply because the government is doing terrible things. and you have to resist. So the bubbles start coming up in the discussion of the community towards social justice. And at first, I just went, nah, you know, we're nuns, we're not social workers.

I was doing retreats with young women. I was, you know, teaching in circles. And I wasn't immediately, yeah, we can all go and get involved in social justice. Then we had a conference up at St. Mary's, up at Terre Haute, Indiana, in the summer. and this nun came to talk to us. Her name was Sister Marie Augusta Neal. And she taught sociology and the New Testament. And she brought us into the gospel of Jesus,

not just as a pious way of life where you pray for poor people and just say, oh, one day they're going to get a high place in heaven. Their role in life is to suffer along with Jesus. but she gave us something she lit my soul on fire when she said good news to the poor is not simply to passively abide by that as if it's God's will this is a human system and they have a right to resist it and to struggle for what is rightfully theirs and I sat in my chair and I remember thinking I don't know one poor person. I lived in the suburbs and I was

separated. Came back to New Orleans after that conference, began to get on a bus and volunteer and go into the inner city to work in an adult literacy place with African American people and that's where

I had the experience for the first time. It was like there were two tracks. Yeah. And if you were poor, you were on that track. What's a kid going to do? A young black man at graduating from high school who can't read what kind of job is he going to get and i could see how it worked julia i had the recognition then it's not that i was so blooming virtuous a good holy nun i was privileged out the kazoo with resources all around me

and when i thought of all how all the times black people had been my servants growing up i saw it rightly i'm here to serve them and to do justice to give back in some kind of way for all that they had given my family and me, that it was justice. And I'm so committed, see, I've seen so much, Julia. I've accompanied eight human beings to execution.

And it's a secret ritual. Even when I was in Texas with Ivan Cantu, and he was close to the 500th one executed, there were people in Texas that didn't know what was going on. Why do you think it's secret? it, where does that derive from? Is it because? Well, there's a masking of death of a lot of levels. Yes. I just think on one level, it's compartmentalization and denial.

Starting with the Supreme Court that cannot acknowledge that taking a human being and putting them in a small cage for 22 years, taking them out, rendering them defenseless and killing them as an act of cruelty. That's a masking right there. That's a compartmental. mentalization. And the way they do that is when we look at all the atrocities that have happened when human beings have done cruel things, is they turn a switch that this is a human being different from us. They demonize them completely. They're not human like we are, so we're justified in this because look what they did. They're othered. They're othered. Very othered. Very othered. Yeah. And it was at the heart of the conversation with Pope John Paul, when I brought him through a letter, direct dialogue with him,

into the execution chamber and said, does the church, when they say they're pro-life, only mean they're pro-innocent life, when you take a human being down, strap them, render them completely defenseless, and kill them, where is the dignity in that death? That was a key point with him and with the church, the inviolable dignity, not just of the innocent life.

But of people who are guilty, too, because people are always more than a single act. We can never define a person by actions. We can never do that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But when you're working with the people who are on death row, does their innocence or guilt matter to you on any level at all? Well, here's the thing. I know how broken the death penalty system is.

Yeah. I know the racism in it, you know, it's so broken. It's so broken. I mean, you know why it's broken fundamentally? It's because of the Supreme Court decision and the way they set it up. You know how they set it up? Tell. Here's the criteria.

The only people who deserve death, not your ordinary murders, only the worst of the worst. Who does Samuel knows what that means? Right. Well, my mother was killed. Well, it wasn't during a felony, so you don't call it the worst of the worst. Impossible criteria. Impossible. And it's coupled with.

with inappropriate, indiscriminate, selectivity on the part of prosecutors to go for death or not. Racism is built into it. And when you look at the history and the practice, over 70% of all death sentences today in the modern era, it's because you get old to white person. You have to care about the status of people when they're killed if you care about their life.

50% of all homicides are people of color. And I could see it happening in New Orleans. It's not even a blip on the radar screen if a black person's killed in New Orleans. But let a white person be killed, boom, it's front page. You can see the racism. And do you think you've made any mistakes in your work against the death penalty?

And what have you learned from those mistakes? Yeah. Well, first big one. And Jason, Epstein, my editor, help me with this too. And he looked at that first draft of Demi-Walkin. I avoided reaching out to the parents who had lost their children. And so Jason looked at it in my first draft at Demiwalkin. And I said, you know, I just had never done this before.

And so I avoided, I didn't want to add to their pain. And he looked me right in the eye and he went, Helen. It was cowardice, wasn't it? Oh. You were scared, weren't it? you? And I go, yeah. He said, look, when you write your book, write about the mistakes you made. Don't just take people on the tips of the waves where you do it right. That was a mistake. And when I did meet the victim's families at the pardon board hearing, it's public, and the

victim's families were there. And that's where I met the father of the boy who had been killed. And he said, Sister Helen, where have you been? I haven't had anybody to talk to. He said, everybody around me is saying, you've got to be for the death penalty. He didn't want to be for the death penalty, but he didn't have me. It was a terrible mistake to have avoided him. And ever after that, I always reached out to people, the victims of the one that I was taking on death row. We have more with the inspiring sister Helen Prejean in just a moment. At a certain age, you suddenly realize the importance of keeping your body strong. That's why it's easy to understand why so many people are talking about protein goals.

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Head to ollie.com slash wiser. Tell them all about your dog and use code wiser to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, they offer a happiness guarantee on the first box, so if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's O-L-L-I-E dot com slash wiser, and enter code wiser to get 60% off your first box. In 97, you had your very best friend whose name was Sister Christopher. You described the loss of Sister Christopher as an amputation, which I think is a really good metaphor for losing someone who is close to you.

What advice do you have for people who are dealing with grief? and most people at one point or another will be dealing with grief because that's a part of the life journey. So I'm curious to know what advice you have or thoughts you have on that subject. Okay. Well, for me, this is what grief feels like. She's not there. She's not there. She's not here.

I'm never going to hear her voice again. I'm talking about Chris's death. Not there. gone gone and so if you have faith which i try to have uh hopeful that there's a communion of saints and that somehow when people are gone from our sight they are not lost in the whole total universe of being so i keep talking to her but the amputation thing is gone it's gone She's gone and the loss of it. Then I try to move to a place of being grateful.

Well, thank God I had that friendship with Chris all those years. She was the first person I was really close to as a friend. And I write about it in River of Fire, about awakening to friendship. We can't make it without friendship. Boy, I'll say. What was it about her? Talk about how wonderful she was. What did you love about her?

First of all, she was smart. She was really a meditated thinking, reflective person. And we were very different. I'm outgoing, outrageously so. She was more of an introvert. So she balanced me. And she'd be the one saying, come on, we've got to get away. We got to get to the woods.

We've got to get to the ocean. And really helped me do that. And then she was someone with whom, if you were, reading a good book, could share it. She was. She could share it. But the cancer hit her when she was young. And, I mean, she died at 59. She wasn't even 60. So when somebody has cancer, you can begin to see it coming and just to try to be there for her and to bring her joy and to be with her through every stage of it. Yes. And it was similar to being with people on death row, of course, or being with them through every one of the stages when they're waiting to see if they get to stay execution

out, when they're counting down the days. There's a similarity where death is the ultimate, however it comes to you, and there is a deep resistance in us as human beings to dying. I mean, to have the soul or the spirit leave our body. I'm afraid I'm going to be a coward, Julia. I hope I can be happy. But that's interesting to me because I don't understand this. I have to ask you, and maybe this is a stupid question, but you have faith, you believe in God and the Holy Spirit.

So I would think that the idea of dying, is this silly, is less scary to you? When we approach death, the part of me that is afraid is the very human part of me. I am human. Yeah. So then I have to go deeper than the fear. As everyone does that has to say, you've got to go deeper than the fear. You've got to go deeper than it, or you'll just be paralyzed by it. Right.

And so what's deeper than the fear? Well, everybody dies. I'm no exception. With my sister, I'm very close to my sister, and Marianne died. She got a glioblastoma brain tumor. Terrible. But she didn't suffer. She went to sleep.

And she was always the tougher one in me. You know, I'd be the first one to cry if we had a fight or something. And I could hear her words inside me after she was gone. And it was Helen, don't be a sissy. Everybody dies. You're going to die too. And like, woman up to it, don't be a sissy. And so it's like I don't have a privileged position that I'm going to be exempt from that more than anyone else.

So resist, resist death, do everything we can. But then finally, to say yes to it, and it's going to be to surrender. So I'm praying for the grace to be able to do that. When I'm talking to people, it's at the human level. I don't talk much or make any kind of airy promises about life after death. I'm just saying, you can do this, and we're going to do this together. I will be with you. and you have all you need.

But like riding the wave of grace, we have a maxim in our community that says, never leap ahead of grace. You live in the presence and surrender into the present, and then you go with the wave. So how does that, and this is fascinating to think about, but then what about people who are grieving? How do you help them walk through grief?

grieving is it's happened and you've had the loss okay yeah and it's first you really do have to allow yourself to grieve i realized after marianne died i was getting too busy i was trying to do things and then i had to just stop i got to allow myself to grieve i have lost my sister to feel the sadness to feel it yeah and to let it be in you yeah and then to be in you and then to it and embrace it. And I try as much as possible to do it in solidarity with all the others in the human race that are grieving and grieving much deeper. I mean, I think of the people of gods and the genocide that's going on there against them. I think of so many people I knew in St. Thomas, like Virginia Carr. She had two sons murdered within six months of each other. People going through

grief, real grief, and not having resources or, you know, where they can't fight back. Because there's a danger in being a religious, a nun, well, I'm like a cut above, I'm very spiritual stuff. You're not. Just a human being and you're experience. And that was the gift of Jesus to us. What truths do you think that the world is refusing to face right now and what truths give you hope that we can change things by going to each other and speaking

to each other and sharing our experiences. That's how over 1,500 years of dialogue in the Catholic Church we finally changed the catechism because people were going into prisons, people were going on to death row, sharing

those experiences in the wider body of the community and consciousness changes and conscience changes and we change things that i know to be a fundamental truth and it is the link to hope because we're not engaged in helping make change to come we're despairing at all the things wrong with the world but we're paralyzed and unable to act so when we reach out our hand to act to reach out to another no matter how small it is we feel the life coursing through us. We feel it coursing through us. Reaching out to others and connecting with others. That's been a theme that comes up a lot on this

podcast and you do such important work. But I'm still wondering, in your downtime when you're not working, you play cards and you eat good food and you hang out with your friends at the lake or at the beach, right? Yeah. And look at good films together too. Oh, yeah. So wonderful. Aren't they good? Yeah. Yeah. They can really take you somewhere.

Have you seen anything you really like this year? Have you seen any good films? Fargo is one of my favorite films. Is it really? Fargo. Let me tell you. I can't believe you're saying that. It's one of my favorite films, too.

Why do you like it? What is it about that you like so much? Well, first of all, I think it's drop-dead funny. Oh, my God. It is so funny. I love Francis McDormand-in-in-it. Oh, yeah, really. Love.

Really. And there are a lot of actors, and it's shot so beautifully. It's just such a series of human mistakes on top of one another. Yep, yep. So it's got that great mashup. It's very violent, but it's strangely hopeful and funny, isn't it? And you know what, it triggered in me watching it, because actually I'm, I've known a lot of people that end up in prison.

They have a great idea for a crime. What can go wrong, right? So then you see Bill Mason pulls in his people. Okay, what a great idea. Can't get money from his father-in-law. So what we're going to do is have my wife kidnapped. Now, y'all be kind to her. But kidnapper, then we'll get the money for the father-in-law to pay the ransom.

What could go wrong with that? What could go wrong? It's such a human story, yeah. But you know what, too, Julia, in the making of the film of Dead Man, and I learned about filmmaking from Tim Robbins. And you know the first thing you told me? Tell me. The difference between art and propaganda.

So he's dead set against a death penalty. So, of course, you could shape your film that it's going to be a, quote, anti-death penalty film. You do the crime early on, people forget about it, and then it's all sympathy for the person and their family and all that kind of stuff. He said, that's propaganda. But art. And he did a very brave thing he talked about this if you see Dead Man Walking. I know, I just watched it again. Did you?

Yeah, I think I know what you're going to say. Okay, tell me what you think. What was the brave thing he did with the editing committee? I think the very brave and artful move he made was to show the complete brutality of the crime at the very end of the film. At the same time, they're showing the brutality of the execution. Am I right? Did I win? Absolutely.

Everybody on the editing committee was saying to him, Tim, but the audience has been through Matthew Ponslet. They see him. He's remorseful. Now he's asking forgiveness in the film there. You have the audience. And Tim said, I don't want to have the audience. And he juxtaposed the killing.

So you see Matthew Ponsolate on the gurney. And then you see that he is raping and killing and participating. And he leaves the audience with that. Yes. And the theater manager said when they showed the film, people stayed riveted until the screen went blank. And they filed out in silence because they were thinking. They were thinking.

And Tim was clear we're not going to make it an innocent person. We want him to be guilty of a heinous crime. We want to do it by lethal injection because they're changing to a more humane way. And we're going to hit them at every morgue. pass because we got to decide is there a humane way to kill a conscious human being a conscious imaginative human being who can anticipate his death and die a thousand times before he die do we have a way to do that and so it was brave it was very brave very brave very artful um it really um well anyway move me um okay i'm going to ask you a couple of

really quick questions, and then I'm going to let you go. But this has been a real treasure to have you here with us today to talk to you. I'm so please, please, please to meet you. Is there something you'd like to go back and tell yourself when you were 21? Oh, to be involved in justice and not just in that pious life, obviously, separated from the suffering of the world. Okay. Is there something you're looking forward to? The next thing, and this is the latest thing, of unfolding in my own soul, is Manuel Ortiz is on Death Row in Louisiana. He's going on 33 years, Julia. He's 33 years on Death Row. And he's innocent.

He's really innocent. And he looked at me during a visit, and he said, Sister Helen, would you write a book about me? I need to get the truth out. They told lies at my trial. I never had a chance. would you write the book? Will you write my story? That's an invitation. I'm going to let you go so you can get back to writing it because I believe in you writing that book. Before you go, I'm going to ask you to do one thing. If you could offer one blessing to those who feel overwhelmed by injustice, what would that blessing be? Don't go it alone. Reach out.

You have neighbors and you have people. Reach out to others to be able to do something together. Don't go it alone. Those are wise words. Thank you. Thank you, Sister Helen, for speaking with us today and carry on your beautiful work. And thank you for doing it.

And you too, Julia. Thank you. Oh, what an honor it was to talk with Sister Helen. She's such an illuminating person. I'm very excited to hear what my mom has to say. Okay, let's get her on the Zoom. Hi, Mama. Oh, hi, love.

How are you? Good. I'm not as good as Sister Prejean. No, you're just as good as she is. But she was amazing. It was incredible to talk to her, mainly about her work against the death penalty. Having said that right now, you look kind of holy because it looks like the star of Bethlehem is above your head. Is there a baby Jesus in that room with you?

How'd you guess it? What is that? What's that coming from? No, it's fine. It looks pretty, Mom. It's good. It's the light fixture. Wow.

that's never been before yeah mom didn't you ever want to be a nun no no I never did I went to a Catholic school when I was in the first grade first and second grade and I say it was not a good experience for me and I never ever wanted to be a nun and when I first got on the bus when I was in the first grade and went to school for the first time I couldn't believe those women with those clothes and all I could think was what did they wear under it? Well, interesting you should say because Sister Helen was saying they wore three yards of black wool cloth as part of their habit. And underneath that were more things, long sleeves. She said they were just, they were sweating all day long, all day long.

She said in July, in Louisiana, can you? you imagine it? I can't. The other thing is, is that she didn't, it was so funny. God, it was so funny. At one point, she said, I was explaining to her what the concept of this, the podcast is, and I was saying, you know, I speak to women who are older and to glean their wisdom and women after a certain age become invisible in our culture.

And she said, what's the name of this show? More wisdom than I got? That's what she said. Isn't that hilarious? More wisdom than I got? Is that the name? Does she have a southern accent? Oh, she has a real New Orleans accent, Nallands.

Yeah. Wow. Well, you know, I thought about her today because I knew that you were going to be talking to her. And it's amazing to be a nun that you are that all the time. Because we all have times in which we are good, you know, that we do good things and that we feel good about it. But then we, it's not that we become bad, but we don't, that's not like on our chart as being something that we do every day like a profession. And it's almost like professionally they have to be good. Yeah, I know.

I know what you mean. But I think she might characterize it. differently. I mean, she did talk about the reality of being a human being and that your one bad deed or many bad deeds or one good deed or many good deeds is not the whole story. And she talks about her work from a really compassionate place, like deeply compassionate. But she's saucy. She's got a lot of piss and vinegar in her. It's interesting. But you're right.

I mean, her life is really dedicated to service big time. By the way, do you remember that your mom, my grandma Didi, had a neighbor. Was her name Velma? Yes. Who was Catholic? And I saw that when I was with Didi, Velma would come home from Mass, and she had a lace veil on her head.

And so I was like, I am going to mask because I got to wear. And so I said I wanted to go with her to mask, and she said I could. And so then I got to wear this, I feel like it was black lace veil that they pinned on my head. I mean, I think I remember it went on a little long, but I was feeling very, very good about my look. I had the right focus. It was very pious of me. Oh, you were just born to the calling. Exactly.

Yeah. Okay, Mommy. So there you go. Love you. Okay, love. Such important word that you're doing. Oh, my goodness. I love you, Mommy.

Thank you. I love you. Okay. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye. There's more Wiser Than Me with Lemonada Premium. You can now listen to every episode, ad-free, plus subscribers also get access to exclusive

bonus interview excerpts from each guest. Just tap that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts. Head to LemonadaPremium.com to subscribe on any other app or listen, add-free, on Amazon music with your prime membership. That's LemonataPremium.com. Make sure you're following Wiser Than Me on social media. We're on Instagram and TikTok at Wiser Than Me, and we're on Facebook at Wiser than Me podcast. We're also on Substack at wiser than me.substack.com.

Wiser than me is a production of Lemonada Media, created and hosted by me, Julia Louis Dreyfus. This episode was produced by Chrissy Pees, Oha Lopez, and Catherine Barnes. Rachel Neal is consulting senior editor and our SVP of weekly content and production is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Paula Kaplan, Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer, and me. The show is mixed by Johnny Vince Evans with engineering help from James Sparber, and our music was written by Henry Hall, who you can also find on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. Special thanks to Will Schlegel and, of course, my mother, Judith Bowles. Follow Wiser Than Me wherever you get your podcast.

And if there's an old lady in your life, listen up. Thank you.