Sister Gerard Fernandez

For the French sports shooter, see Gérard Fernandez.

Sister Gerard Fernandez
Born(1938-01-01)1 January 1938
Straits Settlements (Singapore)
NationalitySingaporean
OccupationNun
ReligionCatholicism
ChurchCongregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd

Gerard Fernandez (born 1938) is a Roman Catholic religious sister who is best known for her work as a death row counsellor in Singapore.[1]

In her more than 40 years of work, she worked with 18 inmates on death row, some of the most notable of whom were Catherine Tan Mui Choo and Hoe Kah Hong, the women accomplices of Adrian Lim in the murders of two children,[2] and Filipina double murderer Flor Contemplacion.[3]

Career

She said that at the age of six her father had her recite a verse "And I commit you to Sing Sing Prison, there to be hanged, drawn and quartered" as an enunciation drill. Shocked, she recited a prayer instead.[4] At the age of 18, she joined the Good Shepherd Sisters, a Roman Catholic order of nuns, at their convent in Marymount.[4] Sister Gerard undertook teacher training and taught primary school pupils at the convent from 1959 to 1962, and thereafter went on a mission to Jakarta for four years to work with troubled teenagers. She returned to Jakarta for another mission in 1972, then on her return to Singapore three years later she founded the Roman Catholic Prison Ministry and began counselling incarcerated drug offenders. Through this work Sister Gerard offered counselling to convicts on death row, and over the next few decades she accompanied 18 condemned prisoners on their final walk to the execution chamber.[5]

Media

In 2018 the short film Sister[6] by film-maker Chai Yee Wei showed Sister Gerard and her counselling of Catherine Tan Mui Choo and Hoe Kah Hong before their deaths.[7]

In May 2019, Gerard gave a two-hour oral history interview to the Singapore Academy of Law, where she talked about her own life and also about the various condemned inmates she counselled while they were on death row in Changi Prison.[8] In the recordings[9] she also described the final moments of prisoners such as Flor Contemplacion and Van Tuong Nguyen[10] as she walked with them to the gallows on the morning of their executions.[11]

Awards

She is the first Singaporean woman to be included in the BBC's 2019 list of 100 Women, the most inspiring women across the globe.[12]

References

  1. ^ "Singapore - 81-year-old-nun-first-singaporean-included-in-bbcs-yearly-most-influential-women-list - News - msn". www.msn.com. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  2. ^ Iau, Jean (18 October 2019). "Singapore nun who counselled death row inmates on BBC list of inspiring women". The New Paper. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  3. ^ "The story of Gerard, the Sister who comforted death row inmates". The New Daily Compass. 7 February 2020.
  4. ^ a b hermes (25 December 2016). "It Changed My Life: 'My calling is people who are broken'". The Straits Times. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  5. ^ "'My calling is people who are broken'". The Asian Age. 15 May 2019.
  6. ^ "Sister by Chai Yee Wei". YouTube. 1 January 2019.
  7. ^ hermesauto (30 November 2018). "Short film about nun who counselled death-row inmates part of project to promote giving culture". The Straits Times. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  8. ^ "HOLD MY HAND TILL THE END: AN INTERVIEW WITH SISTER GERARD FERNANDEZ". Singapore Academy of Law. 6 May 2020.
  9. ^ "FERNANDEZ, Gerard (Sister)Development of Singapore's Legal System, Accession Number E000784". National Archives Singapore. 15 May 2019.
  10. ^ "Beauty in Brokenness by Sister Gerard Fernandez rgs". The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore. 15 May 2019.
  11. ^ "Transcript of first interview with Sister Gerard Fernandez". National Archives Singapore. 16 May 2019.
  12. ^ "BBC 100 Women 2019: Who is on the list?". 16 October 2019. Retrieved 21 November 2019.