Bugging fears thwart sinners' confessions

EGYPT'S Coptic pope has banned the faithful from confessing their sins to priests over the telephone because intelligence agents might be listening in.

"Confessions over the telephone are forbidden, because there is a chance the telephones are monitored and the confessions will reach state security," the independent newspaper Al-Masri Al-Yom quoted Pope Shenuda III as saying.

The leader of the Coptic minority also said confessions over the internet were invalid because they might be read by websurfers.

"A confession over the internet does not count as a confession, because everybody can look at it and it won't be secret," he said.

The sacrament of confession, also practised by Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians, is normally a private conversation between penitent and priest.

Priests are strictly bound to respect the privacy of confession, even in the face of threatened punishment, and many countries' legal systems specifically protect the "seal of the confessional".

Unlike Catholic confessions, Coptic confessions are done face to face.

Coptic Patriarch Anba Morcossaid people had begun to phone in their confessions.

"It's a new thing; it's been happening for the past four or five years," he said.

Morcos said Pope Shenuda has also banned monks in Coptic monasteries from using mobile phones.

"The monk is supposed to be secluded from the world. But the mobile phone brings the world to him," he said.

Monastery administrators are allowed to keep their mobile phones.

The Vatican does not recognise confessions by telephone or over the internet.

Archbishop John Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, has said "confession requires the physical presence of the priest and the penitent".

"Privacy is absolutely not guaranteed on internet, and there is no certainty as to the identity of the two parties to the communication. You can't have confession by email, any more than you can have it by telephone or letter."

"Australian Taliban" is Free

Former prisoners who cower in the longest prison Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks, who eventually become free, Sunday (21/12). That dicabutnya follow strict supervision over him after he was released from prison.

Hicks (33), which disekap for more than five years in U.S. prison in Cuba is accused of dijatuhi punishment by the U.S. military commission. He received strict supervision since released from an Australian prison for almost a year ago.

Supervision is a Hicks dijuluki require "Australian Taliban" to report to police twice sepekan and forbidden to leave Australia. Hicks is also prohibited from using fixed telephone lines or mobile phone, email or the Internet without permission from the police. He will dijebloskan to prison if it violates the ban.

Australian police said Thursday, will not extend the restrictions. Hicks lawyer, David McLeod, the clients are now free to become fully human.

Former factory worker in the kangaroo leather is arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001. He was originally charged in the combat against the Taliban leadership to U.S. troops that invade Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

He was transported to the Guantanamo Bay base owned by the U.S. military in Cuba in January 2002. He was eventually charged with conspiracy, attempted murder and helping the enemy, but all the accusations and then revoked.

Hicks allowed to go home to Australia in May 2007 to complete the remaining nine-month prison sentence, after reaching agreement with the U.S. military. Including agreements he has pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism.

He has never talked in public about the experience in Afghanistan and Guantanamo. "I'm still in the stage of recovery from the ordeal. I'm not willing to explain what happened and why," he said.

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Source: Ant