Speaker emphasizes forgiving

Dimitrios Donavos stepped to the podium and briefly addressed the crowd of 50 gathered to sign the Declaration of Life.

Though his speech was short, he may have captured the very essence of the evening once he found the few words he was searching for.

"Ultimately, we have to look deep within ourselves and find the root of human compassion and love," Donavos (senior-psychology) said.

The events, part of Death Penalty Action Week, began with an address from Bill Pelke, a founding board member of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation.

Pelke told how he lost his grandmother to homicide. His grandmother was murdered at the hands of four ninth-grade girls, one of whom received a death sentence for the crime. Pelke said he had no qualms about capital punishment when the killer was sentenced. But more than one year later, he had an experience that changed his life.

While working, Pelke envisioned a picture of his grandmother crying. As he envisioned the tears stream down her face, he knew his grandmother wished forgiveness for her killers, he said.

"I was convinced that my grandmother would have had compassion," he told the audience.

After much praying, Pelke decided he did not want the girl on death row to be executed, he said. Instead, he wanted to forgive.

He began corresponding with the death row inmate, and his growing activism in the abolition movement led to speaking engagements and a friendship with Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States.

Through the action of Pelke and others, the girl's death sentence was eventually commuted. Now, Pelke travels the country to advocate the abolition of the death penalty, he said.

After Pelke and another member of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation addressed the audience, the crowd gathered to sign a Declaration of Life. By signing, audience members declared that if they were killed in a violent crime, they would not want the offender to be subject to the death penalty. As audience members moved one by one to sign the declaration, they could express their opposition to the death penalty at a podium to the rest of the crowd.

Jen Petullo, co-coordinator of Pax Christi, from the podium asked the audience to spread love and forgiveness.

"You never know who you're going to touch," said Petullo (senior-geography). "You never know who's hurting."