Death Penalty Focus is mourning the loss of our Board Member, Father Chris Ponnet, who died on October 7 in Los Angeles. He was 68.
Ordained a priest in 1983, Father Chris was the pastor at the St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care in Los Angeles for the last 30 years. He also served as the director of the Department of Spiritual Care at the Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center, where he led an interfaith team of chaplains in ministering to patients. And, as Host Pastor, he led the grassroots abolition group Catholics Against the Death Penalty Southern California.
In addition to his work at St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care, Father Chris devoted his time and support to numerous other organizations, including Pace e Bene, Pax Christi USA, and Interfaith Communities United for Justice & Peace.
“During the Coronavirus epidemic, he was one of the chaplains who visited patients and their families during that frightening time, in many instances being the last compassionate voice someone would hear,” ICUJP Communications Director Rick Banales said.
“This was the measure of Chris Ponnet – he was driven to help his fellow brothers and sisters in God, deliberately putting one foot in front of the other to do it, and holding hands with many other people to create an unbreakable bond forged in the call for justice and peace.”
DPF Board Member Robert M. Myers was arrested with Father Chris during a protest at the Nevada Nuclear Weapons Test Site sponsored by Pax Christi USA in May 1987. “Getting arrested was one of the weightiest decisions of my life,” he says. But, he sat next to Father Chris during the hour-long bus ride to Beatty, Nevada, for processing, and “Our conversation during this ride reinforced for me that I had made the right decision,” he said.
“He touched so many people with his love and kindness. We all feel a profound loss from his passing,” Myers says.
What a sweet, kind, decent, thoughtful man. Chris’s quiet, unimposing yet reassuring presence was a gift,” DPF Board President Mike Farrell stated.
DPF Board Member Steve Rohde, who also served with Father Chris on the ICUJP Board, said that “It was through these two organizations that I met Chris and witnessed his deep faith and unshakeable commitment to peace and justice, and ending the death penalty.”
His loss will be felt in so many places in so many ways. He devoted his life to his Church, and to its teachings “to love one another.”
In 2022, Father Chris told Angelus writer Tom Hoffarth, “I trust the Spirit. I trust the community of saints to guide us. I believe in the Irish spirituality of friendships, ’Anam Cara’ — we all need real friendships in our lives. I believe in my role to create, like Martin Luther King said, communities of the beloved.”