Sue Weishar, Ph.D

Sue Weishar has worked in the education and social service sectors for over forty years, including fourteen years as the Director of the Immigration and Refugees at Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans (1991 to 2005) and fourteen years as a Policy and Research Fellow at the Jesuit Social Research Institute (JSRI) at Loyola University New Orleans (2010 to 2024).

Weishar first became involved in ending the death penalty after moving to Louisiana from Guatemala in 1984 when she joined Pilgrimage for Life– a grassroots Catholic social justice movement to end state-sanctioned killing, led by Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ, and attorney Bill Quigley. In 1986 when living in Lafayette, Sr. Helen asked Sue to provide transportation for a poor family to visit their son on Louisiana’s Death Row. She was with the family in their Lafeyette home when they received the call from Angola that their son had been executed. Their cries of anguish and grief are seared into her memory.

After the John Bell Edwards became the first Louisiana Governor to publicly oppose the death penalty in March 2024, Sue had the privilege of leading JSRI’s work on the death penalty later that year when she helped organize the JSRI Death Penalty Education and Advocacy Week at Loyola in partnership with CMN, developed a Novena for Life and Mercy at ten local Catholic Church parishes over nine Fridays, and was part of the planning team of a new faith-based initiative to end the death penalty in Louisiana, Louisiana Interfaith against Executions (LIFE), which organized a vigil in front of the Governor’s Mansion on October 10. Over the years Weishar and other JSRI fellows provided testimony opposing capital punishment inspired by Catholic Social Teaching and Jesuit values at numerous legislative hearings and press conferences.

Sue received a B.S. in Liberal Arts (1977) and a Master’s Degree in Comparative Education (1982) from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Educational Research and Leadership (1996) from LSU. She lives in New Orleans with her husband, Brad Dude.