c. 1996 Religion News Service
Prosecutor won’t use confession given to Catholic priest
(RNS)-An Oregon district attorney says he will not use a tape of a jailhouse confession given to a Roman Catholic priest by a murder suspect.
Lane County prosecutor Doug Harcleroad said Wednesday (May 22) that he was”wrong to authorize the taping of that conversation”between the Rev. Timothy Mockaitis and suspect Conan Wayne Hale. Their April 22 communication was part of the church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation, also known as confession.
Church officials were stunned when they learned that a conversation they considered privileged was going to be used in a criminal prosecution, and they demanded that the tape and any transcripts be destroyed.
However, Hale’s attorney has asked that the tape be preserved until the courts can determine that no information contained on it has been used by the prosecution. At this point, the tape and transcripts have been turned over to Lane County Circuit Court Judge Kip Leonard, who has sealed them, the Associated Press reported.
Hale is a suspect in the killing of three teen-agers. He is being held in connection with a robbery and burglary in which police believe a gun used to commit the murders was stolen. Another man is also being held in connection with the killings.
Deputy prosecutors proposed taping Hale when they learned he had asked to speak with a priest. Harcleroad gave his OK, after telling his deputies to make sure the taping was legal.
On Wednesday, Harcleroad said”at no time did I or any of the lawyers in my office intend any disrespect to the Catholic Church or Father Mockaitis or to any people of the faith. Our intention was to find the truth about the murder of three young people. This is still our intention, but this method was wrong.”
Survey says one in five nurses has helped a patient to die
(RNS)-A new survey by a medical ethicist has revealed that one in five intensive-care-unit nurses has acted on his or her own or with the tacit approval of a doctor to hasten the death of a patient.
The survey-conducted by Dr. David A. Asch, an ethicist and internal medicine specialist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and published Thursday (May 23) in the New England Journal of Medicine-was immediately criticized as being ambiguous.
Critics said the survey did not fully differentiate between hastening death and providing some forms of care.
For example, the most common scenario cited by the nurses was giving pain-relieving narcotics to patients. While the nurses knew the drugs could hasten death, Colleen Scanlon, who directs the Center for Ethics and Human Rights of the American Nurses Association, said merely administering the drugs does not necessarily imply euthanasia.
However, Scanlon also told The New York Times that”it would be naive not to acknowledge the likelihood that some nurses consider participating in euthanasia and some probably have done so.” Dr. Michael De Vita, chairman of the ethics committee at the University of Pittsburg, told the Times that he believed the study exaggerated the number of nurses performing euthanasia, but that it revealed”some core kernel of truth that is very problematic.” He also said he was concerned the survey”will make medical consumers very nervous.” The survey involved a national sample of 850 nurses who work exclusively in adult critical-care units.
High Court rejects attempt to remove”In God We Trust”from U.S. money
(RNS)-Without comment, the Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit filed by a group of Colorado residents who sought to have the motto”In God We Trust”removed from U.S. coins and currency.
The court issued its ruling Monday (May 20).
The suit was filed by the Colorado chapter of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which argued that the nation’s official motto implied a government endorsement of religion.
A federal trial judge and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier rejected the suit, both saying that the motto’s appearance on coins and currency did not violate constitutional guidelines for the separation of church and state.
Similar challenges to the motto have been rejected by the high court in the past.
Egyptian court upholds banning of Muslim veil
(RNS)-Egypt’s highest court has upheld a 1994 government decree that bans schoolgirls from wearing the niqqab, the full-face veil that leaves only the eyes exposed and is worn by conservative Muslims.
The decision by the Constitutional Court was viewed as a victory for the Egyptian government, which has sought to counter the growing influence of militant Islam in the nation’s public schools.
In recent years, Egyptian Education Minister Hussein Bahaa Eddine has fired hundreds of teachers he considered too strict in their interpretation of Islam, in addition to banning the niqqab.
He has also tried to discourage the wearing of the hijab, which covers a woman’s hair but exposes her face. Female students must get their parents’ written permission before they are allowed to wear the hijab in school.
Muslim militants have been fighting to overthrow Egypt’s government, which they consider insufficiently Islamic. The militants’ targets have been police and other government officials, in addition to tourists and Egyptian Christians.
Egyptian officials view attempts to wear Muslim head coverings as an extension of the militants’ plan to turn the nation from an officially secular into an Islamic state.
Quote of the Day: Marya Schwabe
In the Summer 1996 issue of”Tricycle: The Buddhist Review,”readers were asked”What does being a Buddhist mean to you?”Marya Schwabe, an administrative director from Pahala, Hawaii, responded:”Well, that’s pretty simple, really, isn’t it? It’s not a matter of Buddhist or Christian or whatever. It’s practicing kindness and goodness to others, and not harming others. That’s really the true nature of any spiritual practice.”
MJP END
