In Tuesday’s RNS report David Briggs reports on a solution to the issue of dwindling numbers of nuns: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Cleveland, becoming part of a national trend finding strength in numbers amid rapidly declining and aging populations, have voted to join with six other congregations of St. Joseph from Louisiana to Illinois. The Cleveland community became the fifth congregation to approve the plan, joining the Sisters of St. Joseph of Tipton, Ind.; LaGrange, Ill.; Medaille in Baton Rouge, La.; and Nazareth, Mich. Under the plan of union, local leadership will continue in all seven communities for a transition period of more than a year. The new order, to be called the Congregation of St. Joseph with no geographic distinctions, will have its headquarters outside of Chicago in LaGrange, Ill. If approved by all seven congregations, the new group will have about 900 members.

Don Colburn asks if the Supreme Court’s ruling on assisted suicide will turn Oregon’s unique law into a national model: At least six other states have proposed or are considering some form of an assisted suicide law, with bills currently in the legislatures of California and Vermont. Polls show most Californians support such a law, but the sheer size and diversity of the state and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, among other opponents, make the political battle more complicated than in Oregon.

The assisted suicide issue is painfully personal for one of Oregon’s senators, writes Jim Barnett: Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., rarely shies from action when public policy collides with his private pain. But if his Senate colleagues try again to thwart Oregon’s assisted-suicide law, this time Smith wants no part of it. The issue has become too raw and too personal, said Smith, a Mormon who remains opposed to assisted suicide on moral grounds. But his eldest son, Garrett, committed suicide in September 2003 after battling clinical depression for several years. And although Smith supported a previous effort to block the Oregon law, he won’t again. Smith’s change of course could lead to an ironic outcome: It effectively would shield the Oregon law from further action by Congress, allowing the suicide Smith so passionately opposes. His inaction also carries political risk; anti-suicide advocates, many of them religious, may sense that he has lost his resolve.