Nurse suspended for offering to pray

[aggiecatholic05]

now i dont know if this woman was a Catholic or just a Christian in general, but either way this would scare the tar out of me if i lived in britian.

A Christian nurse in Britain may soon be fired for offering to pray for her patients’ recovery.

Caroline Petrie has been suspended and faces disciplinary action because her employer claims she failed to show a “personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity” when she suggested the prayer, the London Telegraph reported.
Petrie visited the elderly woman, a resident in Winscombe, North Somerset, in December.

“It was around lunchtime and I had spent about 20 to 25 minutes with her,” the nurse said. “I had applied dressings to her legs and shortly before I left I said to her: ‘Would you like me to pray for you?’”

The patient said, “No, thank you.”
In the most recent incident, the elderly woman claims she was not insulted by the gesture, but that she is concerned other patients might take offense.

wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87792

so, she just OFFERED to pray. noone was offended, but they were afraid someone MIGHT be. what a world.

 

[Eucharisted]

Nope. She was suspended for asking a patient if she could pray for them, after being told not to do so (it was her second incident).

I don’t know what Baptists believe about prayer, but I do know you don’t need permission to pray for someone.

 

[aggiecatholic05]

she was told not to hand out the cards anymore, which she didnt. either way this sets a bad precedent.

 

[Jennifer123]

I don’t know what Baptists believe about prayer, but I do know you don’t need permission to pray for someone.

But it is just a courtesy to ask. This notion of trying to legislate diversity just creates an absence of civility, IMHO.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Well its nice of her to offer to pray, but the patients are a captive audience. Offering to pray is obviously her attempt to evangelize the patients.

I don’t see this as persecution of Christians. The patients are a captive audience and the employer doesn’t want employees taking advantage of that to promote a religion to them. It would be very different if she got to know the patients well enough to know which ones would appreciate prayers.

 

[Jennifer123]

Well its nice of her to offer to pray, but the patients are a captive audience. Offering to pray is obviously her attempt to evangelize the patients.

.

I didn’t read the article, but I have offered to pray for people many times not requiring them to be held captive. Since when do we all have the inalienable right not to be offended?

 

[Middleman]

If she had been requested by her supervisor to not evangelize patients, then perhaps she was being too pushy. The relationship is not an equal one. The patient is vulnerable and it’s a big breech of ethics for a health care worker to evangelize patients.

If the patient had initiated this with a request for the nurse to pray for him/her, then that is another story.

There are people who proselytize and are inappropriate and pushy. Patients have a right not to be subjected to this.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I didn’t read the article, but I have offered to pray for people many times not requiring them to be held captive. Since when do we all have the inalienable right not to be offended?

It’s not a right, but if you do something that offends people and generates complaints, and your employer asks you to stop, I think you should stop. I don’t think its persecution to be asked to not offend your employers clients while you’re on the job, thats all.

P.S. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong in general with asking people if you can pray for them.

 

[maryjk]

I didn’t read the article, but I have offered to pray for people many times not requiring them to be held captive. Since when do we all have the inalienable right not to be offended?

When you are a captive at the hospital. The nurse had just finished bandaging the patient’s legs. I wonder if the patient could leave. When you are in the hospital, you are at the whim of doctors and nurses. You can really feel like you are under their control. It is like your boss asking you to pray with him.

I don’t mind if someone prays for me. In fact, I think its great. My husband on the other hand wouldn’t want to hear about it.

 

[joe_clark]

If the offer is made for prayer and declined, that should have been the end to it. People have tooo much time on their hands. I am sure the nurse in her work, is a good judge of people and may have thought the time was right to offer a prayer. It sounds like a kind gesture went south? Do to the result, I think the offer of prayer would have helped.

 

[Steeltemplar]

It is the nurse’s right as a human being to reasonably pursue her Christian beliefs. To silence her this way is not maintaining “neutrality”, it is attacking Christianity, saying that Christianity is not acceptable in a public place.

This is typical, of course, of how secular society is increasingly attacking Christian beliefs. It goes along with the whole secular myth about “neutrality” of belief - that somehow forcing all religious belief out of our society is a fair and neutral thing. Far from it. When you force religion out, do you know what you are promoting? Secularism. You are promoting the absence of religion. That is not neutral, that is not fair. It is promoting one set of beliefs over all others.

The truly fair way would be to allow people to express their individual faith in a reasonable way. This nurse certainly was being quite reasonable. Patients were not being denied care, they were not being pressured by anything. The offense which this woman committed was that she did not uphold secularist beliefs, she did not accept the edict that “Thou shalt not pray” and “Thou shalt not talk about God”.

Faithful brothers and sisters, please pray for this woman.

 

[theistgal]

Well, I spent two hours in an emergency room last Sunday evening (yes, during the Super Bowl!). At one point, the disembodied voice of a woman came over the intercom, inviting all of us to join in prayer with her, and the prayer was the weirdest New Age mishmash I’ve heard since my pagan days.

(And by the way, this was a secular hospital! )

Like someone else said, the patients are a captive audience, and it isn’t really fair (should I say “kosher”?) to ambush them like that. If a patient wants someone to pray for/with them, they can ask.

(P.S. I was there for my mom-in-law who was in a car accident - she’s doing better now. )

 

[Steeltemplar]

Well, I spent two hours in an emergency room last Sunday evening (yes, during the Super Bowl!). At one point, the disembodied voice of a woman came over the intercom, inviting all of us to join in prayer with her, and the prayer was the weirdest New Age mishmash I’ve heard since my pagan days.

(And by the way, this was a secular hospital! )

Like someone else said, the patients are a captive audience, and it isn’t really fair (should I say “kosher”?) to ambush them like that. If a patient wants someone to pray for/with them, they can ask.

(P.S. I was there for my mom-in-law who was in a car accident - she’s doing better now. )

That situation is quite different from the nurse who was, out of the love of her heart, offering a kind gesture according to her faith.

I would not be offended if a Muslim offered to pray for me. Or a Hindu. Or a Wiccan. Or any well-intentioned faith. If someone offers me the blessing or well-wishing of their faith, why should I be offended? They are offering kindness and love. To be offended is selfish.

The intercom prayer is a generic and impersonal thing. Therefore, it is far removed from a personal act of mercy such as this nurse was offering.

How is it not fair to simply ask if someone would like to be prayed for? If they don’t, then that is fine. But at least they know that there is a sincere caring on the part of the nurse who offered.

Offering prayer is natural. It is a natural expression of love and a natural expression of faith. Mandated secularism is what is completely unnatural, something which violates human rights in an egregious way.

If you consider it, there is something absurd in the idea of chastising someone for offering to pray. It is only our modern secularist society which has brought us to think otherwise.

P.S. - I am glad that your mother-in-law is doing better.

 

[Steeltemplar]

Food for thought: Would anyone be chastised for saying “good luck” or “best wishes” to a patient?

 

[fix]

so, she just OFFERED to pray. noone was offended, but they were afraid someone MIGHT be. what a world.

Right. Just because some person may take offense does not mean they have any “right” to be offended. Too much illegitimate offense these days.

 

[Arnobius]

There is a difference between proslytism and an act of kindness. Unfortunately modern secularism sees any act with a religious motivation as the former, and a hostility to religion sees the mere existence of religion as an affront.

It is unfortunate that some would view an act of Christian charity as something that should be refrained from

 

[Steeltemplar]

Pope Benedict, right before he became Pope, warned in a homily about the “Dictatorship of Relativism”:
Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI):

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine”, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.

We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An “adult” faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceipt from truth.

 

[Mrs_Mac]

I’ll add my two cents here. I am a nurse working in a Catholic hospital. Personally, I would never bring up the subject of religion with a patient unless the patient initiated the conversation (or the patient is a priest or religious person).

I frequently pray for my patients but feel no need to ask their permission first.

In my opinion if the nurse offered, out of the blue, to pray for the patient without knowing anything about the patient’s religious beliefs, she overstepped her bounds. And I would thoroughly expect her employer to take the patient’s complaint seriously.

 

[Soutane]

But it is just a courtesy to ask. This notion of trying to legislate diversity just creates an absence of civility, IMHO.

I pray for PLENTY of people who would have a fit if they knew-athiests especially.I don’t need anyones permission to pray for them.I especially pray the rosary for non-Catholics who accuse us of Mary worship.Serves 'em right

 

[fix]

There is a difference between proslytism and an act of kindness. Unfortunately modern secularism sees any act with a religious motivation as the former, and a hostility to religion sees the mere existence of religion as an affront.

It is unfortunate that some would view an act of Christian charity as something that should be refrained from

Spot on.