Posted on 04/05/2005 9:30:44 PM PDT by FairOpinion
GULFPORT, Fla. (Reuters) - Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose fate sparked a bitter and highly politicized family feud, was sent by God to deliver a message about life's meaning, a priest said at a funeral Mass organized by her parents on Tuesday.
Schiavo, 41, died on Thursday, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed under order from a state court that had long sided with her husband in ruling that she would not have wanted to live in her condition.
Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, spent years in court trying to keep her alive in a cause that was championed by the Christian right as symbolizing the "culture of life" and that drew in the U.S. Congress and President Bush.
Hundreds of people, some listening on loudspeakers outside the Florida church, attended Tuesday evening's funeral Mass, which reflected the feelings of those who believed Schiavo should have been kept alive.
"God sends us people like Terri to remind us of the meaning of life," Father Frank Pavone, director of an anti-abortion group called Priests for Life, said in a homily.
"God calls us to go forth from this place and build a culture of life so that what happened in this tragic case will never happen again," said Pavone, who earlier in the day issued a statement defending his stance that Schiavo's death was "murder."
The service was held at a Roman Catholic church in Gulfport, a suburb of St. Petersburg, where Schiavo's parents worship.
About 600 people, including the Schindlers and Schiavo's brother and sister, filled the church. Many others listened outside.
Pavone recalled that Pope John Paul II, who died on Saturday, wrote that life has meaning even for those who are disabled or are suffering.
Schiavo had been in what courts ruled was a persistent vegetative state since suffering cardiac arrest in 1990. The bitter wrangling over her fate endured beyond her death.
The Schindlers wanted to bury their daughter in Florida but Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who presided over the case and ruled five years ago that Schiavo should be allowed to die, granted Michael Schiavo permission to have his wife cremated and to have her ashes buried in his home state, Pennsylvania.
The body was cremated on Saturday after an autopsy was performed by the county medical examiner's office. The results of the autopsy are not expected to be made public for several weeks.
Michael Schiavo has not made any public comments since his wife's death and has not said when he will take her ashes to Pennsylvania. He is required to notify the Schindlers of his plans. His lawyer, George Felos, has said Schiavo died peacefully and with dignity.
And Michael Schiavo was where?
STARWISE wrote: ""And as typical of all the news on the funeral, most were reported by KRT (Knight Ridder Tribune, I believe) and NONE told of Bobby's emotional presentation of the Purple Heart that a Viet Nam sent to the family. I searched all the stories. The small number who did just said the Bobby said she deserved one, but didn't give the whole story that it was sent by a vet .. typical of the MSM. It may have been because fv said that only Fox was allowed in .. but I haven't found their version yet.""
Starwise, I'm glad you brought up the Purple Heart that was given to Terri's real family. What a huge tribute to Terri and her family, for a Vietnam Vet to give his Purple Heart to them. It must have meant so much to him, yet he gave it to Terri. Truly a wonderful and amazing act, by the Veteran.
Did you mean that Fox News was actually allowed in the Church? I'm very unhappy with Fox News. Other than Hannity, who there really supported Terri? I know of no others. We should send the photo of Bobby, with the Purple Heart, to others in the MSM.
I wish I could have attended the Memorial Service. I was sure their in spirit and prayer, supporting Terri's family and all the people who LOVE HER SO MUCH.
Stunning that they cannot see what is right in front of them!
For those who want to express condolences to the Schindlers:
http://theresa-schindler.memory-of.com/about.aspx
May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
You tell him to also pray for a 92 yearr old blind "useless eater" with a broken arm, and a mixed up mind, who is just finishing his supper here. Name is Ed.
We shall pray for your son.
Amdgmary wrote--> "Radio host Glenn Beck gave a moving and tearful testimony of how Terri affected his life. Glenn said that Terri performed a miracle by bringing people of all faiths and political beliefs together."
Glenn Beck is very right about people of all faiths, even non-faiths and also political beliefs, being brought to together to support Terri. I have Demo friends who support Terri and also pro-abortion friends, too.
The MSM tried to divide people by always reporting that it was only Right to Life/anti-abortion people who supported Terri. In reality, what happened to Terri should have profoundly effected all people who value the RIGHT TO BREATH AND LIVE THEIR LIFE.
Terri's fight for life wasn't about the Right to Die, as the media so often reported, it was about the basic RIGHT to LIVE. What happened to Terri has now set a new precedent to consider simple Food and Water to be medical treatment. All people of this country, are in danger of one day, facing what happened to Terri.
George Felos is a LIAR when he chants over and over again, that Terri died peacefully and with dignity. What a ridiculous thing for Felos to say. The MSM reports his lying words without blinking an eye. Being Dehydrated will NEVER BE PEACEFUL. Felos and the MSM know it too. Their motive to lie, comes straight from the pits of hell.
Terri Schindler NOW has VICTORY OVER DEATH. She is walking on streets of Gold in Heaven with the LORD. The Bible says their is a cloud of witnesses who watch us. I'm sure Terri was watching her Memorial from above, and loved seeing all of those who support her family and love her so much. The MSM even tried to spin the vigil as something Terri wouldnt want. I disagree. What Terri wouldn't want, was what HINO was allowed to do to her. Those who were at the Vigil were for the most part, supporting her and her family. Therefore, I think Terri would have been deeply touched that so many across this country and even the world, love her so much.
Imagine what Terri thinks of those precious children who even went to jail for her. Also the lady who survived Hitler, went to jail for the crime of trying to give Terri some water. There's no doubt in my mind, Terri is and will always be loved by thousands if not even millions around the world.
May she rest in peace.
I hope Felios get to die in that same peace.
He missed his calling about 65 years or so.
He would have felt right at home opening the doors of a gas chamber in one of Hitler's death camp after a gassing. He would probably made the same statement.
There is nothing dignified or peaceful about being starved to death.
Especially while a bunch of fat sobs are looking on taunting and orgasming.
From my understanding, people from all parts of the political sprectum were against this legal murder.
Like all liars, they cannot keep their lies straight.
"She will feel no pain."
Yet they gave her morphine. Why? they said, for her pain.
After they won, the mainstream media started to referring to her as brain damaged. Before that it was comotoast, pvs, unconcious.
And Michael Schiavo was where?
81 posted on 04/06/2005 3:02:41 PM PDT by
Not where he should be.
People like that woman refuse to learn, Theodore R.
Since Terri’s brutal murder was accomplished last Thursday, I have tried, without much success, to focus on (and write a little about) other issues, but my heart just hasn’t been able to take anything else seriously.
The handful of medical ‘specialists’ who clamored to Michael Schiavo’s side consistently assured us that Terri’s intentional death took place with a certain ‘peace,’ and without pain. There is an indescribable arrogance contained in such conveniently confident ‘expert’ pronouncements. Such medical ‘experts’ presume that their expertise in the physical realm (which itself is not all-encompassing, since new discoveries about the body and its functions and reactions are being discovered every day) is all that matters. Are they not aware that a human being – even one who suffers a disability – also possesses a soul? In the process of dying, the physical body is not the only element that undergoes change. What kind of agony do these ‘experts’ believe Terri’s soul endured during her two weeks of unrelenting torment?
Simply put, the ‘experts’ who testified with arrogant conviction as to Terri’s painless mental and physical ‘serenity’ during her last two weeks of life were doing nothing less than playing God ... and, in the process, making a mockery of His most precious gift.
One of the reasons I (and I believe many others) am having great difficulty getting past Terri’s death is that it is a tragedy the likes of which I don’t believe I have ever before experienced, albeit vicariously – and it has nightmarish implications that not enough of our countrymen seem able (willing?) to face.
September 11, 2001 represented a national nightmare that forever changed the lives and outlooks of all Americans. But September 11, 2001 was a ghastly holocaust perpetrated by malevolent madmen whose ideology, perceived destiny, and sense of right and wrong are entirely foreign to, and abhorrent to, the American belief system and way of life.
I believe that what happened in Pinellas Park, Florida on March 31, 2005 represents a national nightmare of even more ominous proportions. It was a single death, as opposed to three thousand. But the murderers were not maniacal foreigners who despised what America represents and who were obsessed with her destruction. The murderers this time were one American man bent on destroying a life that was a source of inconvenience to him, who sought, and obtained, the support of predisposed American ‘medical experts’ and the American judicial system, on every level -- local, state and federal.
The other two branches of government went to the trouble of expressing a modicum of symbolic dissent, but, in the end, sat passively by as an innocent, ‘inconvenient’ American woman was barbarically murdered, with the full consent (time after time after time) of men of position who have the audacity to call themselves purveyors of justice.
Terri’s murderers number in the hundreds – a handful of active proponents of convenient euthanasia, and hundreds of passive cowards, who value the tranquility of their own personal comfort zones more than the moral obligation to discern and defend right, even when a life lies in the balance.
I have been extremely disturbed by the lack of outrage on the part of many people – both friends and people with whom I rub elbows in my job and other responsibilities – over this tragedy. A good many of them believe her death was justifiable, even ‘necessary’; some are mildly upset by her ordeal; and only a few truly seem to understand the events and wicked motives that led to her demise, or comprehend its implications.
Terri’s death is not a one-dimensional tragedy. Yes, it illustrates the conflict between the pro-life and pro-death/euthanasia forces in this country. Yes, it furthers the leftist agenda to weaken the rights, and dilute the definition, of the nuclear family. But the repercussions penetrate much deeper than those (albeit important) issues. Terri must be viewed as a martyr whose brutal death illustrates the toxicity of abiding judicial tyranny and legislative passivity – as well as cowardice on the part of both the legislature and the administration to hold the judicial branch accountable for its politically-motivated activism and consistent overstepping of its Constitutionally-prescribed powers.
I believe that, in the end, weighing all of the forces that collaborated to declare Terri Schiavo’s life worthless and expendable, even more than Michael Schiavo’s wicked motives and behaviors, and even more than the prejudicial testimony of select ‘medical experts,' judicial tyranny was most culpable in her brutal murder.
And the ramifications of that tyranny will permeate every area of our lives and liberties unless and until our elected representatives muster the courage and resolve to stand up to the black-robed tyrants … or the people decide to take matters into their own hands. So far, rampant apathy among both groups seems to favor the continuation … and expansion … of rule by judicial fiat (sadly, no longer a contradiction in terms).
I will be leaving shortly, with three others, on a three-day village mission trip to Kentucky. Will be conducting Bible study classes and prayer meetings in a small church in a depressed area of Appalachia. One of my piano students will be going along with us to provide music and to work with some of the younger children. While there, we intend to open up a debate/discussion period about the Schiavo travesty, and its moral implications, during one of the prayer meetings. I somehow strongly suspect that there will be more outrage and concern expressed by the people there than I am finding here in our own neighborhood. I’ll be disappointed if it turns out otherwise.
If only the ‘leadership’ of this republic could somehow be inspired by, and seek to emulate, the faith, courage and persistence of the Schindler family. God bless that beleaguered family, and grant them the strength and wisdom they will need to continue their struggle for the restoration of common sense and morality to the American legal/judicial system.
~ joanie
Those are really tough words, but true ones.
An excellent post, Joanie.
Stay safe down south and I want a full report when you get back. :-)
I agree. The special session of Congress that was called over the Easter recess accomplished NOTHING. The federal judge ignored what they passed so they all crept back home figuring they had done their duty.
Like Rush often says, it all amounted to symbolism over substance. And after all the symbolic fuss, Terri is still dead.
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