Parents Seek to Give Schiavo Communion

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - After another round of losses in the courts, Terri Schiavo's parents kept watch over their dying daughter Saturday, seeking permission to give her Easter communion as their attorneys acknowledged the fight to reconnect the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube was nearing an end.

Attorneys for Bob and Mary Schindler decided not to file another motion with a federal appeals court, essentially ending their effort to persuade federal judges to intervene - something allowed by an extraordinary law passed by Congress.

But at least three more appeals loomed by the Schindlers and Gov. Jeb Bush. Schindler attorney David Gibbs III appealed an unfavorable ruling Saturday with a last-ditch plea to the Florida Supreme Court to get the feeding tube reinserted.

"Time is moving quickly and it would appear most likely ... that Terri Schiavo will pass the point that she will be able to recover over this Easter weekend," Gibbs said. He filed an emergency petition arguing that a Pinellas County judge ignored new evidence of Schiavo's wishes and her medical condition.

Paul O'Donnell, a Roman Catholic Franciscan monk, said the family is urging Schiavo's husband to allow his wife to receive the sacrament of communion at sundown Saturday, when Catholics begin celebrating their holiest feast of the year. Schiavo, who cannot swallow, would have a minuscule piece of bread and a drop of wine placed in her mouth.

Earlier, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer rejected the family's latest motion. The family claimed Schiavo tried to say "I want to live" hours before her tube was removed, saying "AHHHHH" and "WAAAAAAA" when asked to repeat the phrase.

Doctors have said her previous utterances weren't speech, but were involuntary moans consistent with someone in a vegetative state. Greer agreed.

Scott Schiavo, the brother of Schiavo's husband, Michael, said the family was pleased to see the Schindlers' efforts nearing an end.

"He knows in his heart he is doing the right thing, he is doing what Terri wanted," Scott Schiavo said. "He's having a hard time understanding why people are fighting him on this, why they are calling him a murderer. It's very tough on him."

Michael Schiavo has said she has no hope for recovery and wouldn't want to be kept alive artificially. The Schindlers believe their daughter could improve and say she laughs, cries, responds to them and tries to talk.

Doctors have said she would probably die within a week or two of her feeding tube being pulled, which was done March 18 after Greer sided with her husband. Her body wracked by dehydration, attorneys for her parents said she may not last through the weekend.

"She's doing remarkably well under the circumstances," said Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, after visiting her inside the hospice Saturday afternoon. "She has put up a tremendous battle to live. She's not throwing in the towel."

Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, denied reports by the parents' attorneys that her tongue and eyes were bleeding.

"She is calm. She is peaceful. She is resting comfortably," Felos told reporters Saturday as four sheriff's deputies stood by to protect him.

Terri Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, called that "absurd" and challenged Felos to allow videos and photos to be released, so the public can see Terri's condition. "They're mischaracterizing the condition today, just as they have been ... It's sick. It's heinous," he said.

Felos said earlier that allowing videos to be recorded inside Terri Schiavo's room during her death process would violate her privacy rights.

Outside the hospice, about 60 protesters maintained a subdued vigil and, like her parents, hoped for a miracle. Some said they believed it was not a coincidence that the woman would lay dying during the Easter weekend.

"Things are all done in God's timing," said David Vogel, a 47-year-old Steubenville, Ohio, musician who was arrested for trespassing last week when he tried to enter the hospice to take water to Terri Schiavo. "Does he have his hand upon this? Oh, yeah. The parallels are there with what happened to Jesus Christ. He was condemned to death, an innocent man. She's an innocent woman."

A group of 22 protesters bearing wooden crosses arrived by bus from a Christian community in Augusta, Ga., to join the fray.

"It's the most significant weekend for Christians, and God wants us to be aware of the preciousness of life," said one of the coordinators, Louis Hymel, 52. "God calls us always to the cross, and this is an example of us taking up our cross."

Schiavo was reared in the Roman Catholic church, and her parents have made heavy use of her faith as the basis for the numerous appeals to reinsert the feeding tube that was removed more than a week ago.

The Schindlers have argued, for instance, that she should be spared based on statements by Pope John Paul II that people in vegetative states have a right to nutrition and hydration. They say Terri would have obeyed the pope and would not choose to have her tube removed. That argument was rebuffed in the state courts.

Terri Schiavo has been without food and water longer than she was in 2003, when the tube was removed for six days before Gov. Jeb Bush pushed through a law to have it reinserted. The law was later thrown out by the state Supreme Court.

Many supporters of the Schindlers say Bush could simply ignore the courts and take emergency custody of Schiavo. But Bush, himself a convert to Roman Catholicism, has said he's not willing to go beyond the boundaries of his powers.

Bush and the state have two appeals pending in their fight to support the Schindlers. But the challenges are before the state 2nd District Court of Appeal, which has rebuffed previous efforts by Bush in the case.

Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped briefly from a chemical imbalance believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder. She left no living will.

Greer has denied Terri Communion on previous occasions!! Where is Jeb Bush? This is a denial of her religious beliefs! UNBELIEVABLE...

Terri Schiavo denied Last Rites
Catholic monsignor forbidden to put crumb of holy wafer in dying woman's mouth

Posted: October 19, 2003
2:00 a.m. Eastern

By Sarah Foster

Saying she only was following court and doctor's orders, an attorney for Michael Schiavo yesterday would not allow a revered Roman Catholic priest to administer Holy Communion to brain-disabled Terri Schindler-Schiavo, who is being slowly starved to death following the judge-ordered removal of her life-sustaining feeding tube on Wednesday.

Attorney Deborah Bushnell told Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, who has been Terri's spiritual provider for three years, that ''because of court order and doctor's orders, you can't put anything in her mouth,'' not even a morsel of moistened communion wafer.

Malanowski recounted the bizarre incident for WorldNetDaily.

''I felt that time was of the essence at this point and made a decision that because she is not going to live much longer, I might not have another opportunity to give her Holy Communion,'' he said.

As he had done almost every Saturday for over three years, the priest accompanied Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, to the Hospice of the Florida Sun Coast in Pinellas Park, Fla, where she has been a patient since April 2000. Because so little time is left for the family to be with Terri, her brother Bobby and sister, Suzanne, were there as well.

Plus there were two police officers in the room and a woman who was said to be Schiavo's ''representative.''

Malanowski spoke with Bushnell outside the room, explaining that he wanted to administer the Sacrament of Annointing of the Sick or the Viaticum, the last communion for a Catholic before death. Bushnell contacted Schiavo by phone to make certain he would allow it, and he gave his permission.

Wanting to make it a prayer service, the priest invited the family into the room to share the sacrament with Terri, but Bushnell demanded to know what the priest was going to so.

Malanowski explained he was going to give her: ''a small, tiny particle of the consecrated Host. And I'll moisten my index finger [in water] to make sure the Host will stick to it and that it will stick to her tongue.''

Bushnell said he couldn't do that, but suggested he ''take the Host, touch her lips with it, and you consume it.''

Malanowski protested, ''I'm not here for that. I am here to bring her communion, not me. I went to communion this morning. This is communion for her.''

Contacted by telephone, the priest of the local parish told Bushnell there was an ''alternative'' called ''spiritual communion'' for people who can't receive communion – ''She receives the Lord in her heart.''

''I told attorney Bushnell, I've been doing that for over three years,'' Malanowski exclaimed. ''Every Saturday I give her spiritual communion, and I want her to receive communion in the mouth. She hasn't received communion for 13 or 14 years. She's dying. She's on her deathbed, and with dying people – whether it is a male or female Catholic – I'm obligated to take care of their religious and spiritual needs when they're dying. They get absolution, Holy Communion, and Annointing of the Sick.''

Malanowski argued the matter with the parish priest, but realized he was ''following the party line about spiritual communion.''

''I told him I'd been doing that for two-and-a-half years – and he said, 'Well, the doctors say you cannot put anything in her mouth.'''

Malanowski said he would do it, ''because she has the constitutional right to follow her religious beliefs, she has the right to receive communion and I have the obligation as a priest to give her communion. This will be perhaps the last time in her life on earth that she receives communion.''

But the priest didn't agree. ''I sensed that, because he was saying, 'Otherwise you can't do it. If the court-order says so and the doctors say so, you can't do it.'''

Unwilling to argue points of theology and constitutional issues on the phone, Malanowski tried Bushnell again, but she was adamant. ''She wouldn't let me do it.''

There were two police officers, and he asked them, ''What if I go in there now and give her communion?'' And they said, ''We will deny you access to her. You will not be able to put it in her mouth.''

At that point Bobby and Suzanne, said, ''Father, let's go.''

And they did. While Bushnell was talking with the priest, they had had a prayer service and the ''spiritual communion'' – but many Catholics do not regard that as the same as communion with a consecrated host.

Outside the hospice a scheduled press conference was about to begin, and Malanowski found himself in front of the TV cameras.

''I told them [the media] the whole story, that she was denied her religious privileges and I was denied the right to take care of her religious needs,'' he said. ''I told them, that the attorney had some suggestion about me touching Terri's lips with the wafer, and then I was supposed to consume it. What does she know about Catholic ritual or rites?''

As WorldNetDaily reported, the Schindlers had been fighting their son-in-law for 10 years over the lack of care and therapy Schiavo as her guardian provided for their daughter, who suffered massive brain damage when she collapsed at her home 13 years ago under mysterious circumstances at the age of 26.

The ongoing dispute escalated five years ago when Schiavo petitioned the court for permission to end his wife's life by removing her feeding tube, insisting she is in a ''persistent vegetative state'' and had told him years before she would not want to be maintained ''by tubes'' and ''artificial means'' Although Terri breathes on her own and maintains her own blood pressure, she requires a simple tube into her abdomen to her stomach for nourishment and hydration.

The Schindlers fought tenaciously to keep their daughter and the case alive in the courts, but they have been basically blocked at every turn in particular by probate judge George Greer, of the Pinellas County Circuit Court, who has had charge of the case almost from the beginning. When the seven-member Florida Supreme Court in August turned down a petition to review the case, the way was clear for Schiavo to starve his wife to death.

On Sept. 17, Greer scheduled Oct. 15 as the day Terri's feeding tube would be removed. At the same time, in separate rulings, he denied any rehabilitation for the disabled woman or a chance to be spoon-fed.

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