Sisters from a convent outside Waco are visiting women on death row in Texas to offer spiritual support. This piece from Lawrence Wright explores the profound connections that develop between the sisters and the inmates, and how visits filled with compassion and understanding contrast against the realities of their crimes, convictions, and the wait for their execution.
The nuns knew nothing about the women’s crimes. They also knew little about one another. The sisters seldom speak, and the lives they’ve left behind are rarely discussed. It’s a kind of forced naïveté, in which gossip and news are replaced by prayer.
I thought about how these women had been living the quietest life imaginable, until their sudden plunge into a dark and complicated world had filled them with new purpose.