Thread by me.
Life is a Gift
Detroit — Seven years ago, Bobby Schindler’s life changed as he watched his sister fight for hers.
Terri Schiavo had suffered severe brain damage several years earlier after entering cardiac arrest in her St. Petersburg, Fla., home, but that wasn’t what was threatening to take her life.
According to her brother, the hospitals, courts, state and Schiavo’s husband posed a far greater risk. And on March 18, 2005, Schindler and his parents could only watch helplessly and desperately as Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, on which she depended for sustenance, was removed. Thirteen days later, she died a slow death of hunger and dehydration.
Since that gut-wrenching moment, Schindler has devoted his life to advocating for families fighting similar life-and-death battles, something he says continues to happen “every day.”
“The struggle was that we couldn’t believe to the extent people were going to end my sister’s life,” said Schindler, who will give a keynote address during the archdiocese’s second annual “Life is a Gift” conference next month. “The mindset has changed among our culture and among the general public that they look at someone like Terri really with a profound prejudice and a cruelty in the way they describe her.
“It’s become part of our vernacular that we just refer to people like my sister as ‘vegetables,’ which is completely dehumanizing,” Schindler said. “If we keep moving in the direction it seems to me we’re moving in, we’re just going to keep making more and more excuses and justifying more and more why people like my sister should die.”
Schindler, whose presentation will focus on what he calls the “bioethicist movement” in the country’s medical schools, cited a “growing problem” in the nation’s attitudes toward the dignity of life, comparing the discussion of euthanasia today to that of abortion decades ago. He says it’s an issue even most Catholics don’t understand.
“Catholic teaching is completely clear on how we’re to care for these individuals, but that’s not being told to our laity,” said Schindler, who is Catholic. “The nation, the general public, needs to be educated to see just how awful, how terrible this issue is.”
Schindler will join speakers including Bishop Michael Byrnes and Dr. Paul Wright, who treated and worked with Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, at the conference at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary on Jan. 14. The focus, organizers say, will be on a variety of pro-life issues facing Christians, including poverty and health care reform.
“This year the emphasis is more toward acknowledging the dignity of all people with special needs,” said Socorro Truchan, coordinator of the archdiocesan Marriage, Family and Pro-Life Office. “Last year we emphasized more the unborn, the beginning-of-life concerns.”
Truchan said while the abortion issue is important, it’s vital for Catholics, especially teens, to recognize the entire spectrum of pro-life challenges.
That includes the hot-button topic of homosexuality. Also speaking at the conference will be Dan, a revert to the Catholic faith and a member of Courage, a Catholic apostolate that ministers to those with same-sex attraction.
Dan, who struggles with same-sex attraction and prefers not to reveal his last name, said the Church’s message of freedom and hope is being lost in a sea of secular misinformation on the subject.
“Pope Paul VI said it’s the church that’s an expert in humanity,” Dan said. “So I just want to educate students a little bit about what the church’s teaching is, and then share my own journey of how I found freedom in the truth of the church as someone who’s lived with that in his life from the very beginning.”
Dan said after being raised Catholic and converting to evangelicalism, he became “disillusioned” with his faith after college and decided to live with a boyfriend for a year.
“I expected God to give me a lot of judgment, but He actually just showed me love,” Dan said. “And then while I’m dating this guy and don’t want to ever be attracted to a woman again, I found a woman that I was attracted to, and it brought back up all my desires to be a father and have a family.”
Dan said while his relationship with the woman didn’t last, it caused him to re-evaluate his faith. He said his journey back to the Catholic Church wasn’t “all roses,” but he said the sacraments keep him strong in moments of weakness.
“To those teens who struggle with it, my primary message would be one that first of all says they’re not alone in this, and that there is hope in the journey of embracing chastity,” he said.
The conference costs $35 for adults and $20 for students and includes breakfast and lunch. Bishop Byrnes will celebrate Mass before the conference at 7:30 a.m. A complete schedule, including topics and breakouts, can be found at www.aodonline.org/lifeisagift.
Truchan said the conference offers something for everyone.
“Anything and everything to do with the dignity of life and upholding life we’re gearing this conference for,” she said. “Maybe that’s too general, but I figure let’s just hold out our arms and then the Lord will bring them all in.”
