By Elizabeth Tomlinson
Christ the King Parish, Missoula

Late in the afternoon of Feb. 8, in the old state Supreme Court Chambers, four artists were honored with the Montana Governor’s Award for the Arts. The honorees sat below the judges’ area, with Gov. Brian Schweitzer, Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger and additional speakers on either side of them. The room was packed with approximately 120 guests and members of the media, the Arts Council and the Montana Ambassadors.

Ed Lahey, from Butte and Missoula, was the Literature honoree. He’s considered to be the greatest poet Montana has produced, for having given voice to its laboring people. He won the Montana Arts Council’s first First Book Award in 1979 with “Blind Horses” and in 2005 his complete poems were published as “Birds of a Feather” by Clark City Press.

When it was Ed’s time to accept the large gold medallion, with the Seal of the State of Montana on one side and that of the Arts Award on the other, the governor placed it over Ed’s shoulders and then the poet walked slowly to the dais.

“It seems to me that a Governor’s Award winner should express what he feels about things he feels deeply about,” he said. “I thought I would try to do that, and then read a short poem or two. First of all, war is always unjust. Monstrous. And they call it collateral damage. Another monstrous proceeding is capital punishment. Capital punishment makes the state a legal executioner, and gives the state the right to take a man’s life, which is morally wrong, and this practice should be discontinued.”

His words gave a jolt of hope to those who believe it could happen in the next Montana legislative session, and the attendees jumped to their feet and burst into enthusiastic applause. When they finally settled back down, the “Bard of Butte” read his poems “Blind Horses” and “Gimp O’Leary’s Iron Works.”

Pope John Paul II wrote in “A Letter to Artists”: “Those who have the divine spark which is the artistic vocation ... feel at the same time the obligation to put it at the service of their neighbor and of humanity as a whole ... Humanity looks to artists to shed light upon its path and its destiny.”

That same year, the pope made headlines around the world when in St. Louis the death penalty was the focus of his visit. He called it “cruel and unnecessary ... even in the case of someone who has done great evil.” (New York Times, Jan. 28, 1999)

In 2005, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops launched the Catholic Campaign to End the Death Penalty. In June 2006, Bishop George Leo Thomas wrote in this newspaper: “Retribution and violence, while understandable, neither heal the soul nor restore the loss of a loved one. A rational examination of the death penalty reveals a startling reality – that we are attempting to teach that killing is wrong by taking the life of another person.”

Pope Benedict XVI explained that we need not fear that evil will go unchecked: “God does not allow darkness to prevail. In fact, in the words of my beloved predecessor, Pope John Paul II, there is a ‘divine limit imposed upon evil,’ namely, mercy.” (“Message for Lent, 2006”)

God assures us that mercy triumphs, and the Church counsels that as members of the Body of Christ, we are to be merciful.

The European Union, England, Canada and Mexico have eradicated the death penalty, and in the United States, 12 states have abolished it. In the last Montana legislative session, a measure to repeal the death penalty passed the Senate by a vote of 27-22, but was defeated in the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 9-8. Another attempt will be introduced during the 2009 legislative session.

Ed Lahey’s use of his three minutes as recipient of the highest award granted to an artist in Montana, in order to speak out for those on death row, was in the tradition of artists whose humanity drives their art, and for whom a stand for life is a necessity of soul. As Pope John Paul II wrote in “A Letter to Artists,” “Thanks to this enthusiasm, humanity – every time it loses its way – will be able to lift itself up and set out again on the right path.”

After the ceremony, Bishop Thomas sat next to Ed and said: “You did us proud today, Ed.”


The website for the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty is www.usccb.org/deathpenalty. The Montana Catholic Conference (www.montanacc.org) leads local efforts. It is a member of the Montana Abolition Coalition, which has an action page at www.mtabolitionco.org/act/updates.html

Justice Voices columns are coordinated by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development committee of the Diocese of Helena.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 24, No. 2, February 15, 2008.