From CNN U.S. Intriguing people for February 26, 2010

Michael Denson: "Walking the last mile with death row inmates, Michael Denson lives in a state where 87 percent of the residents support the death penalty." So begins Michelle Bearden's remarkable portrait of Denson at the uscatholic.org Web site. The Frisco, Texas, rancher founded the Catholic Death Row Ministry two decades ago, and today he finds himself spending less time with his cattle and more hours with inmates at maximum-security prisons. He told Bearden, "The general attitude is 'Let's kill them, and let's kill them as quick as we can.' I don't judge others for holding that opinion, but it doesn't work for me." Bearden reports that Denson's mother frequently wrote letters to inmates who needed pen pals. When he was 8, he asked his mother to write a letter -- on his behalf -- to convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, who killed two men in Utah and who was later executed. "Then the FBI called my mom and told her that her young son wrote this letter to Gilmore, saying he wanted the inmate to meet his dad when he went to heaven," Denson said. "My dad died when I was 5, and since it seemed certain that this man was going to die, too, I was hoping he'd look for my dad." In addition to the visits, Denson writes his own letters to prisoners and has witnessed four executions at the request of inmates or family members, according to Bearden. He is often asked how he would feel if someone murdered his child. "I would pray that God would give me the grace to forgive," Denson told Bearden. "No matter what, I still believe that only he has the right to take a life." U.S. Catholic: Walking the last mile with death row inmates

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