Servant of God Jacques Fesch (1930-1957), a murderer who spent three years and eight months in solitary confinement, experienced a profound conversion before his execution by guillotine in a French prison. Light Upon the Scaffold, edited by Augustin-Michel Lemonnier and translated by Matthew J. O’Connell, is the title of his collected prison letters. Jacques’ father, […]
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
WITNESS TO AN EXECUTION
A few years ago a friend turned me on to a radio series called Sound Portraits. There were shows on ghetto life, Bowery flophouses, and the guy who repairs the Cyclone on Coney Island. But the one that really gripped me was called Witness to an Execution. Here’s the intro: “Witness to an Execution tells the […]