Demonstrators are seen near the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind., to show their opposition to the death penalty July 13. (CNS photo/Bryan Woolston, Reuters)
By Natalie Hoefer
Catholic News Service
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — On the grounds of the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods near Terre Haute, news of the execution pierced the quiet on the morning of July 14.
The bells of the Church of the Immaculate Conception there are tolled after any execution in the nation, explained Providence Sister Paula Damiano.
But that morning, “for the first time in 17 years,” she said, “a sister tolled the bells following (a) federal execution” at the Federal Correctional Complex.
The bells announced the 8:07 a.m. death of Daniel Lewis Lee.
Less than 24 hours before, a temporary stay of all scheduled federal executions was announced by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia due to evidence that the drug to be administered causes severe pain. The decision was immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by the federal Department of Justice.
At 2 a.m. July 14, the Supreme Court overturned the ruling. Lee was executed and pronounced dead six hours later, according to a Reuters report.
In sharing her reaction with The Criterion, newspaper of the Indianapolis Archdiocese, Sister Paula said the sisters “believe that forgiveness is vital to faith. We are called to forgive every day.”
She noted that many sisters “past and present” have visited death-row inmates at the Federal Correctional Complex, including one sister now deceased who had visited Lee.
“We will pray for Daniel Lewis Lee, his family, and the victims of the tragedy from 1996 and their family,” she said.
Lee was convicted of murdering a gun dealer, the man’s wife and her 8-year-old daughter in Arkansas in 1996.
The Supreme Court decision also affects federal inmates Dustin Lee Honken and Keith Dwayne Nelson, whose executions were previously set for July 17 and Aug. 28, respectively.
The July 15 scheduled execution of Wesley Ira Purkey went forward at 8:19 am (EDT), after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order clearing the way. Earlier, his execution had been temporarily stayed when a judge had agreed with his lawyer on the need for further investigation into a couple of points he raised about his client’s case.
On July 14, Benedictine Father O’Keefe, 64, who is Honken’s spiritual adviser, lost his bid in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana to seek a preliminary injunction to delay Honken’s execution. Father O’Keefe, a moral theology professor at St. Meinrad Seminary in St. Meinrad, Indiana, has been asked by Honken, a Catholic, to minister to him prior to his execution.
The priest contended the coronavirus emergency in Indiana puts him and others at risk of catching COVID-19 by attending the executions, so on July 7 he filed an intervention pleading to join a lawsuit filed by a Buddhist priest seeking to delay Purkey’s execution on coronavirus fears. The judge also denied the Buddhist’s motion, which was separate from Purkey’s lawyer’s filing.
Deacon Steven Gretencord, who has ministered to death-row inmates at the federal prison for nearly 10 years, shared his reaction to the news in an early morning call with The Criterion, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
“I just am amazed that we as a nation continue to use such draconian methods of punishment,” he said. “We’re so intent on revenge that we seem to lose sight of what justice is about. We only have one true judge, and all of us will face that judge.”
“It’s just such a very sad, sad, state of affairs,” he said. “This is not going to bring closure to anyone. All it does is reopen the wounds and prove that we have no idea about justice, and certainly not about mercy.”
