Sister Helen Prejean, whose book Dead Man Walking about her experiences counseling a man on Louisiana’s death row was made into an acclaimed movie of the same name, will speak at 4 p.m., March 11, in the Mystical Rose Oratory on the campus of Chaminade University of Honolulu.

Sister Helen’s talk is part of the Mackey Marianist Lectures sponsored by Chaminade University, Saint Louis School, and the Marianist Center of Hawaii. It is free and open to the public.

A member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, she is also the author of Death of Innocents. Her writing has also been the inspiration of a play and an opera.

Sister Helen’s is a long-time advocate for the abolition of capital punishment in the United States, and for related issues such as better legal representation for prisoners, and reviews of how states apply the death penalty.

She has also urged the Catholic Church to take a more active role in fighting capital punishment. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that cases in which an execution is an absolute necessity to defend others “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”

Pope John Paul said in a 1999 visit to St. Louis, Mo., that the death penalty was “cruel and unnecessary” and called for an end to it.

For information about the lecture, call Marianist Brother Dennis Schmitz at 735-4801 (office) or 232-6691 (cell), or send him e-mail at baldschmitz@aol.com. Information is also available at www.Marianisthawaii.org.