Eileen Reilly

Eileen Reilly is a School Sister of Notre Dame from Boston, Massachusetts. After teaching in elementary and secondary schools for several years, she became involved in peace and justice ministries in a university, several parishes, as her congregation's provincial Justice and Peace Coordinator, and finally as the congregational NGO representative to the United Nations. Currently she is the religious engagement associate with the Catholic Mobilizing Network, working to increase religious involvement in the effort to end the death penalty in the United States.

By this Author

Two people hold signs about rehumanizing death row inmates and abolishing the death penalty (Unsplash/Maria Oswalt)

Stand against the death penalty, even if an inmate wants to die

We as Catholics don't make exceptions for when the death penalty is acceptable. Whether requested by the individual or mandated by the state, the death penalty is — as our Catechism states — always "inadmissible."

(Unsplash/De an Sun)

Asking God for a sign amid life and death

A sister who served as a spiritual adviser to a death row inmate shares a reflection from years ago: "I was never one who seriously prayed for a sign from God. But all that changed. Here's how it happened."