DON'T DO THE CRIME IF YOU CAN'T DO ETERNITY

A Little Too Personal (PETER STEINFELS, July 19, 2003, NY Times)

Can you sue the person in the pulpit for preaching hellfire - at least if it gets personal?

That's only one of the questions raised by an unusual lawsuit filed last month against a priest in northern New Mexico and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the family of Ben Martinez, charged that at the funeral for Mr. Martinez, the parish priest declared that the deceased, an 80-year-old former town councilor in Chama, N.M., had been a lukewarm Catholic who had been living in sin and was going to hell.

Besides accusing the priest of other abusive statements and demeaning behavior, the suit detailed psychological pain, physical afflictions, anxiety, depression and humiliation allegedly suffered by Mr. Martinez's family in the months after the funeral, which occurred over a year ago and had been attended by more than 150 relatives and townspeople. [...]

This might be a simple dispute over defamation. Preaching at a religious service is not a license to say anything about anyone. But if hard words are a recognized part of a religious doctrine to which someone has voluntarily subscribed, the matter becomes more complicated.

It always seemed strange that Bob Dole cried at Richard Nixon's funeral, given that when Ronald Reagan sent Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon to Anwar Sadat's the Senator referred to them as: "See No Evil"; "Speak No Evil; and "Evil". Obviously mere men don't know where souls are going postmortem, but with some folks we've all got a hunch, don't we? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 23, 2003 7:25 PM