Posted on 03/28/2005 6:43:57 AM PST by NYer
Terri Schiavo's husband is set to inflict what her grieving relatives charge is the final insult: insisting that her body be cremated against their religious wishes — and then buried in his own family's plot.
"They would like to have her body so they can have a Christian Mass and a Christian burial," said Brother Paul O'Donnell, the spiritual adviser to the deeply Roman Catholic family.
"They want their daughter. If they can't have her in life, they would hope he'd have compassion and give her in death."
But Michael Schiavo refused to budge on the extremely emotional issue as his tragic wife lay dying nine days after the courts sided with him and ordered her feeding tube removed.
His lawyer, George Felos, cited one court order earlier this month that granted him the right to cremate her, despite her anguished parents' and siblings' wishes.
"That's what the court has ordered," Felos said. "This was challenged prior to the removal of the feeding tube, and it will happen because that's what the court has ordered."
As with the feeding-tube removal, Mary and Bob Schindler had fought against their son-in-law in his bid to cremate their daughter's body once she dies.
They said they want to bury her in Florida instead of having her cremated and interred in the Schiavo family plot in Pennsylvania.
While O'Donnell appeared to keep his words measured over the simmering dispute, another family spokesman, Randall Terry, was more direct about his feelings for Michael Schiavo.
"He's a despicable swine for doing that," Terry said of Schiavo's cremation plans.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The Catholic Church's practice of burial goes back to early Christian days. A strong belief in the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, as well as the belief in the resurrection of the body, support the Church's continued reverence for the human body. From early Christian days cremation was viewed as a pagan practice and a denial of the doctrine of the Resurrection. That's why cremation was expressly forbidden by the Catholic Church until recent years.
In 1963, an Instruction from the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) lifted the ban on cremation by allowing it in certain circumstances provided that the reasons for choosing cremation were not contrary to Christian belief. However, burial of the body was clearly to be preferred. No allowance was made for any prayer or ritual to be used with the cremated remains. In other words, all services were to be in the presence of the body of the deceased, with cremation allowed only afterwards.
In the revised funeral rites of 1969, Ordo Exsequiarum, mandated by Vatican II, a further step was taken to allow for the Committal Rite to take place at the crematorium or grave site: "Funeral rites are to be granted to those who have chosen cremation, unless there is evidence that their choice was dictated by anti-Christian motives....The funeral is to be celebrated...in a way that clearly expresses the Church's preference for burying the dead...that forestalls any danger of scandalizing or shocking the faithful" (#15). The presumption was that the funeral Mass would be celebrated in the presence of the body with cremation held off until later.
In the 1983 revision of the Code of Canon Law, the traditional practice was reinforced. "The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burying the bodies of the dead be observed; it does not, however, forbid cremation unless it has been chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching" (Canon 1176).
The further revised funeral rites, Order of Christian Funerals, in use since 1989, maintain this tradition of preference for burial of the body: "Since in Baptism the body was marked with the seal of the Trinity and became the temple of the Holy Spirit, Christians respect and honor the bodies of the dead and the places where they rest..." (#19).
A threefold ritual
The Order of Christian Funerals prescribes three separate and ideally sequential rites to celebrate the journey of the deceased from this life to the next. This movement or progression of rites can be helpful to the mourners going through this period of separation and letting go of their loved one.
The principal celebration is the funeral liturgy, which is typically a Mass. Two smaller celebrations also take place. The vigil for the deceased is a short prayer service during the time following death and before the funeral liturgy. It usually takes place at the funeral home. The rite of committal is a short prayer service at the cemetery, ideally beside the open grave or place of interment. Both of these short services include Scripture, prayers and possibly songs. The ideal sequence of these three funeral rites is vigil, funeral Mass, then committal.
Up to this time, with cremated remains banned from church, the only way to solve the problems created by immediate cremation (cremation before the funeral) was to reverse the order of these rituals, that is, have the rite of committal (burial) at the cemetery first and then have a memorial Mass. However, committing the remains for burial prior to the funeral liturgy often does not satisfy the need for the mourners to have something of the deceased present when gathering for the final farewell. The prayers of the funeral liturgy praise and thank God for the gift of this person's life whom we are now commending to God, as well as being a source of hope for all of the living.
In the United States up until 1997, the Order of Christian Funerals clearly indicated that if cremation had been chosen, cremated remains were not to be brought into church for the funeral Mass. Even now this is permitted only in cases where special circumstances warrant it and the bishop approves. The reasoning is that the funeral rites are intended to honor the body of the deceased.
It was the body which felt the waters of Baptism, was marked with the oil of salvation and nourished by the Bread of Life. The sprinkling of the casket with holy water and the draping with the white pall are reminders of Baptism. The body is the incarnation of the presence of God in the world, the temple of the Holy Spirit. There is a substantial difference between the body of the deceased and cremated remains. The Church's thinking has rightly been that we cannot just substitute one for the other and expect our rituals and prayers to carry the same meaning.
Yet ashes and bone chips that remain after cremation are something—there is a real connection between them and the body. So why not have them present to remind us of the one whose life we are celebrating? As sacramental people we need the "stuff" of the senses around us to help us get in touch with the deeper reality. After all, these cremated remains bear the imprint of the first creation when they were fashioned from dust. The traditional Ash Wednesday formula says it well: "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return." Catholics can easily make the connection between these remains and the body of the person they knew and loved.
There is no problem with this if cremation is to take place after the funeral Mass. A rite of committal for cremains (cremated remains) is provided as an alternative in the current funeral rite. The difficulty arises when cremation is done before the funeral—as in the earlier case of the retired Michigan man who died in Florida. Yet in dioceses whose bishops choose not to allow funeral Masses in the presence of cremated remains, a reversal of the rites is one solution for a less-than-ideal situation.
Here is how that might work for a diocese that will not be making the changes. For example, a person dies a few days after a critical auto accident far from home. In the days before death, the family determines that cremation will be the only feasible option. A vigil rite could be celebrated at the deathbed using the final commendation (a prayer of farewell) over the body at this time. This is the final commendation that is usually at the end of the funeral Mass, asking the Lord to accept the deceased into paradise. Then, after the body is cremated, the rite of committal would be used at the place of burial.
Following the committal all would come to church for the funeral liturgy, without the body present.
There is no way that MRS will back down on anything: he has the support of the American people. Plus he does not want the sheeple to see the emaciated body of Terri. Even with a traditional closed-casket funeral, somehow photos of her emaciated state will leak out and discredit the popular Schiavo. Besides, don't you know?, that Terri "demanded" cremation. And he just wants to "carry out her wishes."
This too is a lost cause, sadly.
It sure looks like he is trying to destroy evidence.
I would imagine that the owner of the crematorium will do this job himself: no employees will be involved at all, for fear of one snapping a picture and selling it to a tabloid. However, the tabloids, like their sheeple readers, have shown no interest in Terri thus far.
Not so much evidence perhaps (an autopsy would be disputed by MRS if it were adverse to him, and the people would believer MRS) but he must keep emaciated pictures out of print.
of Operation Rescue fame ?
Makes you wonder, if he's got no ulterior motives, why won't he respect the parents' wishes? Gee, what could he be trying to hide?? Argh....
You are probably right. I was wondering to myself what crematorium would actually do this? But then, I wondered what doctors, nurses, staff, etc. would actually assist in letting her starve. Apparently there is a large contigent of people out there that believe because it's all legal, it's ok.
I keep saying it's like the Taliban are running the country. It's legal to beat the women to death, or shoot them in the head, the law is being followed! Who are we to condemn it? We do the same thing here. Makes me shake my head.
The parents have no case.
It is unfortunate, but no court is going to award them custody of the body. Especially after the spectacle the courts made of ensuring that Terri would die, against all standards of morality, and the spirit of the laws regarding the right to life cited within our Declaration of Independence as being inherent to our being.
I bet there's going to be no autopsy, and I doubt that Jeb has any power to order an autopsy... but cremation of the body as if he's has something to hide... I seriously think that Michael Schiavo is either extremely possessive, or that he is somehow guilty of something that he wants to hide.
I suspect he just hates his inlaws, and he'd do anything and everything to spite them, including killing their daughter, and then denying them the comfort of seeing to her final rest.
Well you can ask the same question at abortion mills. The american people have lost their souls.
I absolutely agree!
Notice how Felos attempts to depersonalize all of this. Someone had to make the request to the almighty "court." I would suppose it was Schiavo through his attorney, Felos. The sense one gets is that we are allowing God to be replaced by the courts, though, ultimately, that can't be done.
I also heard his lawyer, Filo, say that Terri would have wanted him to shack up with the other woman..That she would have wanted "his happiness."
Too busy fighting for the rights of lesbians, bi-sexual, transgendered and confussed womyn while blaiming Bush.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1369301/posts
I have always thought that it is a mistake for parents to pay off mortgages of grown children. Doing so always seems to have bad repercussions, often leading to marital breakups.
Of course, in this case the marriage was presumably about to end, and then the collapse! This is the first that I had heard of the Schlinders paying off the Schiavo mortgage. I had thought that Terri and MRS were in an apartment that Mr. Schindler owned.
I think MRS' extermination of Terri could be his way of saying "No divorce" to poor Terri.
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