Vatican pleads for Terri Schiavo's life

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 24, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A Vatican official launched an appeal to save Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose husband wants her off life-support care.

On Wednesday a Florida judge ordered the tube delivering food and water to Schiavo kept in place another 48 hours.

Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer said he needed time to consider legal challenges raised by the woman's parents, including the possibility that her husband, Michael Schiavo, was unfit to act as her guardian.

In statements on Vatican Radio, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said: "If Mr. Schiavo succeeds legally in causing the death of his wife, this not only would be tragic in itself, but would be a grave step toward the legal approval of euthanasia in the United States."

He added: "I would like to remind everyone in this connection, about all that the Holy Father has said in past days to the Pontifical Academy for Life, confirming that the quality of life is not interpreted as economic success, beauty and physical pleasure, but consists in the supreme dignity of the creature made in the image and likeness of God.

ROUGH DRAFT --- excerpts --- starting about 1 minute into his homily today, Father Frank spone about Terri Schiavo...
[This is being SHOWN AS AN ENCORE ONE LAST TIME ON EWTN at about 14 minutes past midnight eastern]

===================================================================================
...
You've heard about this already, thru the ministry of EWTN, you've heard
about presumably in one way or another on the news, there is a woman in
Florida by the name of Terri Schiavo, who since 1990 has been suffering from
a brain injury, but who otherwise, brothers and sisters, IS LIVING and HEALTHY.
She is NOT dying. She does not have any kind of a terminal illness. She is
not connected to any kind of life support.

The problem that has arisin, for years now, is that her husband wants her to
be starved. She is fed by a simple normal feeding tube at mealtime. Aside from
that, there are no tubes or machines connected to her body. She is living on her own.
But she has been kept in a hospice.

Her parents, and her siblings WANT to take care of her for the rest
of her life. She is not able to communicate easily, but she IS aware, and she
IS alert. I've been to see her two times, I'll tell you more about that in
a moment. But her parents, and her-- She has a loving family, committed and
ready to take care of her for the rest of her life.

And meanwhile, this estranged husband, I'm going to have some words addressed
directly to him before I'm finished with this homily, is off with another woman,
with whom he has two children, and WANTS Terri dead.

Brothers and sisters, one would think that this is enough information, to resolve
this situation, and to say, well then, let him go his way, and let her be in the
care of her family. But because of legal technicalities... but because in the
eyes of the law... the husband is her quote 'legal guardian', the law has not
been able to intervene here to say, well, legal guardian or not, you don't have
the right to starve another individual. You don't have the right to kill an innocent
person.

Our legal system is broken. The court system is broken, and it is time to fix it.
And when the laws, and the courts, and the system in place in this country, or in
any other country, that has as its primary purpose the protection of life, the
protection of its citizens, NO LONGER achieves that goal, then it is the duty
of you, the people, to rise up and change this situation. And that's why I say
to you today, as I said back in the beginning of November, you have a task to do
and I know that you will do it.

It has to be done. What else can be done? Brothers and sisters, this situation
is reaching a climax. It changes hour to hour. There are so legal maneuverings,
there are so many questions still on the table, there are so many angles to this,
that by the time you see this broadcast later in the day, the situation may have
changed from what it is now.

The point is, first of all, those of you who live in Florida, I want to make a
special appeal to you, and those of you who KNOW people in Florida... It is the
people of Florida, at this point in time, who have the biggest opportunity to
help Terri and her family, by contacting the governor and the STATE legislators
of Florida, and ask them to intervene. Because Terri's feeding tube was removed
once already, and thanks be to God, the legislature of the state of Florida,
and the Governor DID intervene, and were able to protect her from starvation.

That needs to happen again. The legislature and the governor need to intervene
yet again, to find any and every way that they can... any and every way that
the law provides for them... And you the people, need to let them know that
you want to see that happen.

If you don't live in Florida, and you don't know anybody in Florida, then by
all means, let your own representatives on the federal level, at least KNOW
your concern. So that perhaps in some way, some things can be discovered, tha
can be done on a federal level.

But let your lawmakers know that you are deeply troubled and concerned about
this problem. And then there's another angle, there's another dimension to this.
I told you that I SAW Terri. I was in to see her twice. I saw her once in September
and I saw her once just a couple weeks ago.

And she communicated. She's alert. We prayed. She follows everything thats
happening in the room with her eyes, turning her head, smiling. When I was in
there with her parents, her dad leaned over to kiss her, and she made the motion
to kiss him back...

She's not able as I said, to articulate her words, but she attempts to speak.
And if she HAD the benefit of some physical therapy and some speech therapy, she
would be in a lot BETTER condition, but guess what? She has been DENIED that
treatment, she has been denied that simple physical and speech therapy, by the
same person who wants her to be starved.

I told her, when I visited with her, and laid hands on her and prayed with her, that
she has a lot of friends around the country. That she has a lot of people who
know about her, and love her, thats you. And she KNOWS that.

Brothers and sisters, there is another dimension, besides entreating and emploring
our lawmakers to do something about this problem. And that is what the holy father
speaks about in evangelium vitae(sp?), the gospel of life. Which by the way
this year is the 10th anniversary of this marvelous document, the gospel of life.
It was issued on march 25th of 1995. And he mentions among other things, the
duty of conscientious objection.

When laws, or court decrees, such as a decree to starve someone to death by not
feeding them. When such decrees and decisions are issued, the Pope points out, as saint Thomas
Aquinas pointed out, as scripture points out, as has been the teachings of even before Christ,
that we can read about it in the OLD testiment, we see the SAME theme, right along, that
nobody has to obey an UNJUST law because an unjust law is not a law at all.

So a court decree that says don't feed this woman, has NO AUTHORITY!. Now a lawyer will
tell you, well, you know, it has authority, because, well, thats the way that the system is
setup, and this judge has this particular authority to pass this decree, and this particular
guardian has this authority to decide this and decide that... NONSENSE!

I dont CARE what the SYSTEM says. There is a law HIGHER than ANY court. There is a
law HIGHER than ANY decree. And a decree to let a person be STARVED - HAS - NO - authority.

Now we're at a crossroads here. Because either the people of God are going to say... well,
we can ONLY pray about this, we can't do anything about it, because THAT is the law...
OR, we're going to take matters into our own hands, in an appropriate way, and exercise
what the Pope calls, conscientious objection. Because this can't happen by itself.

You see, when a judge issues somebody a decree like this, somebody has to photocopy it,
somebody has to transmit it, somebody has to carry it from point A to point B. And the people
who are entrusted with that task MUST REFUSE to do it. There are people who have to actually
have to transfer it. Terri or anybody else who might be subject to this kind of a decree,
[]
and reconnected, you've got to refuse. [....] to the place where they are going to be starved. []
[]disconnect her feeding tube, take her to another room... [] Don't bring her.
Don't DO IT! You've got to refuse.

How much longer are we going to go on, making belive, that's what's right, and what's wrong is just
a matter of the abstract, or somewhere in the recesses of our minds or hearts and it doesn't get translated
into concrete reality? NO brothers and sisters.

Let me read from the holy father's words, he says "When a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law"
here he is quoting Thomas Aquinas, "but in this case it ceases to be a law. It becomes instead, an act of violence."

A court decree, with all the respectability that that SHOULD have... is IN FACT, an act of violence...
if in fact it is authorizing the killing of an innocent person. And then he goes on to say... these laws
and decrees quote "are completely lacking in authentic juridic validity. Consequently, a civil law of
that kind, ceases to be a truly morally binding civil law."

=============================================================== ...sorry, but I HAVE TO RUN, I will repost as a separate thread when I have cleaned this up and finished it.... anyone with a ping list, spread the word, and wathc for updates here or separate thread. ...FLE

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