Martin E. MartyMartin E. Marty
While focusing on "public religion" and "religion in public" zones, “Sightings” necessarily pays attention to the public/private distinction in religion and obsessively concerns itself with guarding that which is and should be private. So we paid close attention to a newly recognized zone of possible violation: prayer in public worship.
In the Dallas Morning News (July 22, 2000), Susan Hogan/Albach writes about how "Public petitions for the sick become a legal concern." Meaning: that some people have illnesses they do not want disclosed in worship, and a few have taken to suing -- what else? -- where there have been unwitting disclosures. News of some illnesses can embarrass, while news of others can compromise careers. And more.
Computer technology -- again, what else? -- is among the villains: "With computer technology making it possible to share data more easily than ever before, Americans' concern about protecting their privacy, especially medical records, has made it a pressing legal and social matter."
Some years ago theologian and ethicist William May, also of Dallas, wrote about the publicness of prayer-for-others in worship. In such prayer the needs of congregation members are lifted up, the often invisible (the homeless, for example) are made visible, and congregants are to remember and pray for enemies. May made good points.
Those of us who have moonlighted as pastors or have been with fellow-believing friends when they are ill know how meaningful and powerful is the knowledge that others are praying for them. One would hate to see this power diminished, the bases for awareness lost. Yet there are also some legitimate legal, ethical, and moral considerations, as Hogan/Albach points out.
Kathy Kunes, we read, typically fields sick calls at a Dallas-area Catholic parish. "Many times people want the priest to know what's wrong, but they just don't want it being made public," she relates. Usually, that's when it's something like prostate cancer, breast cancer, a stillborn birth, or drug problems. It's very painful."
No doubt privacy has sometimes been violated, however unintentionally: the well-meant blurting out of names and conditions during intercessory prayer, or some printed names and illnesses described in worship bulletins or congregational newsletters. But to entirely stop remembering others in need, through public prayer, would be devastating. *Sightings* does not dispense advice but only observes. We observe that those responsible are taking greater care on this front -- but they keep on caring. They make inquiries to guard privacy and, with permission, name names and say healing and helpful public prayers as well.
[“Sightings” comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author of the column, *Sightings*, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.]
"..... mindful of confidentiality, permission must be given by the individual prayed for to use his or her name in the public prayer of the Church." - from "Prayer Lists" in "The Grapevine" (monthly newsletter of Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, CT) [September 2004, p. 3]
See http://www.philosophy-religion.org/criticism/lawsuits.htm and
http://www.philosophy-religion.org/criticism/privacy.htm .