Death Row Inmate Wins Case For Mass On TV at Louisiana Prision!!

Well lets thank the ACLU for something. This is very interesting and Catholics should note this case. The need for Catholic ministry is very much needed in the prisons.

Killer wins fight for TV Mass
Inmate: Baptist service dominated death row
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
Many convicted killers seek solace in the Lord in their final days, and Donald Lee Leger is among them. Further, he insists on the Catholic interpretation -- not a Baptist version that blared on the TV sets for all death-row prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
So he sought help from the American Civil Liberties Union. Though the ACLU has fought for separation of church and state in the public square -- Nativity scenes, Ten Commandments, crosses -- in Leger's case it defended a particular brand of worship in a taxpayer-financed cage for the state's most evil men.

"If you are behind bars and you have limited contact with the outside world, the only thing you have is your spirituality," said Katie Schwartzmann, an attorney for the ACLU, which sued on behalf of Leger. "Baptists had access to services that Catholic prisoners didn't have."

The prison relented in a settlement effective this month. So Leger -- awaiting death for murdering a stranger in St. Mary Parish while chasing his girlfriend, who escaped his kidnapping attempt -- will now have viewings of Catholic Mass and have private confessions with a priest. He will also receive the Holy Eucharist.
Other prisoners who may prefer Baptist teachings will be offered earphones to listen to their preachers; the television's speakers will be silenced. It's the second time in the past year that ACLU lawyers alleged deprivation of religious rights by the prison -- a sprawling former plantation that has seven churches, a Bible College offering degrees for 19 denominations and Warden Burl Cain, who once said that one of the tenets of running a prison is "good praying."
The ACLU Foundation of Louisiana, based in New Orleans, sued the state in December in an effort to bring Muslim services to Angola. Before his suit, Leger didn't get to watch Mass on TV or attend one in person from April through December 2007. One televised Mass was shown to death row prisoners between June 16 and Dec. 31, 2008, he said.
Baptist sermons were ubiquitous.
"On a single Sunday morning, televisions on death row will often broadcast two services from the same church," Leger's attorneys wrote on his behalf in the lawsuit. "It is typically Baptist churches that have two services broadcast on the same day."

Angola, through the state attorney general's office, agreed to extend policies to help Leger and other imprisoned Catholics worship. The settlement, reached July 1, affects all inmates at the maximum-security prison, and neither side admitted any fault.

Instead, the prison agreed to welcome Catholic clergy to hold Mass on death row and hear inmates' confidential confessions, which are not to be recorded or monitored, according to the settlement. (Good Grief I hope this was not happening)

A prison spokeswoman said Angola wants to provide inmates with any religious services, books and programs they desire.
Death row inmates typically spend 23 hours a day in their single cells, and can only ask a guard to change the channel. About four inmates share a television set on each death row tier, while in a typical dormitory, about 90 inmates must watch one set.
The program choices come down to a vote, not any policy promoting one religion over another, said Assistant Warden Cathy Fontenot.

Angola has always had a very strong Catholic presence here," Fontenot said. "We have St. Augustine Chapel, it's probably the oldest building on the farm. We try to do the best we can with the resources we have."
In his lawsuit filed at the U.S. District Court in Baton Rouge, Leger accused prison officials of retaliating against him when he complained, including placing him in solitary confinement for 10 days and destroying a plastic rosary mailed to him from the Diocese of Alexandria.
But in settling, Leger volunteered to dismiss all claims.