I Provided Spiritual Care During a Texas Execution

I HAD A friend. He died last summer. Actually, to say “He died,” is too passive. He was killed. He was killed as I held him, as those who loved him and those he had hurt watched. On June 26, 2024, the state of Texas executed Ramiro Gonzales for the rape and murder of Bridget Townsend. In 2001, Ramiro was 18 years old, suicidal, violent, and struggling against the chains of addiction; but 23 years later the state took the life of a 41-year-old man who was sober, faithful, and deeply considerate of everybody who surrounded him. He was loved. I miss him terribly.

Ramiro and I first connected in 2014 as pen pals. What started as an exchange of letters blossomed into a friendship spanning more than a decade. There are some who only knew Ramiro for the vicious violence he perpetrated. I’m sympathetic to their anger, but this is not the Ramiro I came to know. As our friendship deepened, Ramiro cherished my children, sending them birthday cards and artwork. We shared in both the sacred and mundane of our daily lives. We also discussed his crimes, his grief, and his profound shame.

After entering the order of ministry in the United Church of Canada, I became Ramiro’s spiritual adviser. This designation allowed me to be with him in the execution chamber, my hand on his chest, singing and praying over him as Texas used a lethal injection of pentobarbital to kill him. It was one of the most haunting and devastating experiences of my life. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about Ramiro, about Townsend, or about everything that went wrong that brought us to that deadly day.

Just a few years ago, the thought of me — a Toronto pastor — sitting inside a Texas death chamber would have seemed unimaginable. Yet, there I was, due to a significant shift in Texas’ execution protocol. The state had moved from allowing only its own appointed chaplains to accompany the condemned in the moment of their execution to granting inmates the right to the spiritual adviser of their choice, a result of years of legal battles over questions related to religious freedom and equity. My journey to that chamber was also defined by the moral dilemma of opposing capital punishment, while simultaneously taking on a vital role within the execution process of someone I cared for deeply.