Posted on 04/04/2005 1:27:27 PM PDT by syriacus
In the Terri Schiavo case, "right-to-die" attorney George Felos served as the "Devil's advocate."
And Father William Murphy as the "Devil's advocate's expert."
On January 24, 2000, Father Murphy was the pastor of St. Anne's Church, Ridge Manner, in Hernando County, Florida. And George Felos' expert witness on Catholic teaching in the Terry Schiavo case. Father Murphy testified: "I believe, yes, it would be consistent with the teaching of the Catholic church."
"IT" was "the removal of Theresa Schiavo's feeding tube."
It has been said that a lawyer can find an expert witness to say virtually anything. Father Murphy's sworn testimony is powerful evidence for that unfortunate proposition. I don't know whether Father Murphy was paid for his services as an expert witness.
But, if he was, and it was thirty pieces of silver, he should have been suspicious. It is tragic that appellate judges rubber-stamped the most egregious abuses of trial court discretion in the name of judicial deference to the judge who was in a position to see the demeanor of the witnesses.
Even when the trial judge was legally blind. At best, Father Murphy was mistaken.
On March 20, 2004, Pope John Paul II made that crystal clear.
By telling the participants in the International Congress on "Life-sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas" that:"[d]eath by starvation or dehydration.... ends up becoming, if done knowingly and willingly, true and proper euthanasia by omission."
Pope John Paul II explained:
"Medical doctors and health-care personnel, society and the Church have moral duties toward these persons from which they cannot exempt themselves without lessening the demands both of professional ethics and human and Christian solidarity.
"The sick person in a vegetative state, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of eventual recovery.
"... the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering."
There's nothing ambiguous about that.
Poor Father Murphy.
Father Murphy volunteered to be George Felos' expert witness.
He was not subpoenaed.
And he was horribly mistaken.
What was worse, however, was Judge Greer's blind refusal to recognize that Father Murphy had been horribly mistaken.
And the appellate courts' refusal to act when Judge Greer adhered to his decision to starve and dehydrate Terri Schiavo to death when they learned what Pope John Paul II had said.
You don't have to be a Catholic to realize that Pope John Paul II outranked Father Murphy when it came to Catholic teaching.
And you don't have to be a lawyer to realize that George Felos tacitly conceded that he needed to prove that the Catholic faith accepted death by starvation and dehydration when he called Father Murphy as his expert witness.
i'm sure 'Father' Murphy got a generous "gift" in the collection plate for the "poor".....geesh
Father Murphy will be judged in the end.
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