The Nuns Trying to Save the Women on Texas’s Death Row

Ronnie Lastovica, a Catholic deacon ministering to women on death row in Gatesville, Texas, realized there was a limit to how much guidance he could give them. He sought the help of the Sisters of Mary Morning Star, a group of cloistered Catholic nuns at a convent outside of Waco. The nuns develop deep bonds with the condemned women; one inmate comments about their first encounter: “It was just instant. There wasn’t a moment of discomfort. There wasn’t a moment of unease. We opened our arms and they opened their arms, and we embraced one another.” Within these relationships, the women on death row—born into lives of unspeakable abuse and violence, and living with complex trauma—become more than their crimes. For The New Yorker, Lawrence Wright writes a very nuanced and challenging story about faith, redemption, the failures of the US justice system, and an unexpected sisterhood that forms in the most isolated and darkest of places. (Subscription may be required.)

The nuns had been praying for divine intervention—some event that would block Melissa’s execution. They also prayed to be strong if it happened anyway. The sisters had become close to the condemned women, and they felt the weight of the imminent loss. “We’re connected because we’re sinners,” Sister Pia Maria observed. “I’m not saying we killed anybody. But we’re not perfect. Maybe because of our studies of metaphysics, we can understand the human person better and receive them with dignity and respect, regardless of what crime they committed.”

The nuns decided to make their third visit to Gatesville four days before the scheduled execution. In addition to having a final prayer session with Melissa, they planned to make a radical proposal. Sister Lydia Maria would invite Melissa to become one of them, through an affiliation with their order called oblature. This is a designation for laypeople who support the work of the Sisters of Mary Morning Star, primarily through prayer. Five hundred people around the world had this formal connection.

Before their trip to the prison, Sister Lydia Maria asked Deacon Ronnie what he thought. He said that, if the nuns were going to offer oblature to one condemned woman, they should offer it to them all.

When the nuns arrived, they were shocked to discover Melissa inside a cage. The other inmates were sombre and weeping, grieving the impending death of their companion and contemplating their own approaching executions—a burden that they’d been able to set aside for the past eight years.

Although the cage looked barbaric, it in fact reflected the compassion of the warden, who’d stretched the execution protocols to accommodate Melissa’s final days. In the month before the execution date, Melissa was supposed to remain isolated from her fellow-inmates. The warden, however, allowed her to remain in their presence as long as she didn’t touch them, which accounted for the cage.