Saving Terri Schiavo
One of the saddest components of the Terri Schiavo story besides the relentless efforts of her husband to kill her has been the efforts of Florida Catholic Conference and especially her own Diocese. You can look at the Diocese of St. Petersburg and would be totally unaware of the impending court ordered execution of one of their members. Bishop Lynch last letter on the subject on August 12th was quite equivocal o the subject with sentences like "Despite the prayers of many, myself included, her family has not been able to come together to make a single, unified, mutually agreed upon decision concerning Terri’s situation." As if the family coming to a unified discussion to withdraw nutrition and hydration in this case would be morally acceptable.
The recent statement by the Florida Catholic Conference isn't much better:
At this juncture, we wish to reiterate several themes from those statements:
1. Lament Confusion as to Her Condition
We lament that there remains – in the eyes of many – confusion as to Terri Schaivo’s actual condition and prospects for her treatment. We have continually requested that parties involved seek greater resolution in this regard.
2. Presumption for Nutrition and Hydration
The Catholic community begins discussions regarding the withdrawal and withholding of artificial nutrition and hydration with a presumption in favor of their provision. However, when the burdens exceed the benefits of providing them, they may be withdrawn or withheld. We note that what is too burdensome for one person may not be too burdensome for another.
3. Need for Health Care Advance Directives
That Terri Schaivo left no written instructions as to whom should make such decisions in her absence (a healthcare surrogate), or what criteria ought to be used to make such determinations has contributed to the difficulty of this case. This is not rare. Studies indicate that approximately 20% of adults have completed such tools. We urge all adults to utilize written directives, and we offer a Catholic Declaration on Life and Death, which can be found on the website.
4. Need for Ethical Decision-making
It is also important to note that such health care surrogates and medical directions can never “trump” or override appropriate moral considerations. In this regard, Catholic teaching notes that the proxy may not deliberately cause a patient’s death or refuse ordinary and normal treatment, even if he or she believes a patient would have made such a decision.
5. Presume Best Intentions
We urge people to refrain from excessive rhetoric and misguided zeal, against which Pope Pius XI cautioned. There are many unanswered questions in this case, and it is necessary to presume upon the best intentions of all involved until shown otherwise.
6. Opposition to Euthanasia
We oppose euthanasia. While withdrawal of Terri Schaivo’s nutrition and hydration will lead to her death, if this is being done because its provision would be too burdensome for her, it could be acceptable. If it is being done to intentionally cause her death, this would be wrong.
7. Join in Prayer for Terri Schaivo and Family
We continue to ask all people of good will to join us in prayer for Terri Schaivo, whose spiritual needs are being met by clergy of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, and for all involved in this difficult case, especially her husband, parents and siblings.
Now it is understandable to some extent why they are speaking in very general terms in regards to the Church's positions on this subject. Yet in specific regards to the case of Terry Schaivo they should be speaking in the terms directly related to this case. They bring up the caveat of "too burdensome for her" but do not outline how in any way this might be applicable in this case. They "lament confusion as to her condition" when it is obvious that she is in no way in an end-stage condition. She has already survived two attempts at starving her to death and the only thing burdensome to some people is that she continues to live. The Florida Catholic Conference has issued many press releases to urge clemency for convicted killers (as well they should), but not one asking for clemency for Terri Schaivo. Why is it that a priest outside of St. Petersberg has been one of the biggest advocates for her. Fr. Rob Johansen has done much to help Terri's parents and to get the message out. Too many statements sound more akin to diplomatic communique than shepherds tending their flocks. Wolves are not normally scared away via crouched language.
Fr. Rob and Pete Vere have collaborated and composed a prayer for Terri.
Merciful Father, you blessed Sr. Lucia of Fatima as a child with a vision of the Virgin Mary, and granted her the grace to live a life of holiness and heroic obedience to Holy Mother Church. By her life she bore witness to the glory of God. Grant, in this hour of need for your daughter Terri Schaivo, that by Sr. Lucia's intercession, those souls hardened by the culture of death may come to believe in the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and be moved to revere and protect her life and all innocent human life. Amen.
Fr. Rob also previously suggested:
- Pray!
- Offer penance in reparation for sins against the dignity of life.
- Spread the word.
- Call your local talk radio station.
- Ask your priest, bishop or pastor to speak out.
- Send a donation to Terri's Fight to support the effort to save Terri's life.
- Organize a rally in support of Terri.
- Write and call the President to demand that he speak out and intervene.
- Pray some more!
I fervently remember the last time the feeding tube was removed that lead to the passage of Terri's Law that temporarily put an end to this madness. Political intervention this time around is pretty unlikely and Terri's fate is again in the hands of Judge Greer and her husbands. So as Fr. Rob an others ask, pray and especially pray for Judge Greer and her husband Michael. There seems to be less activity or at least less publicity this time around when it comes to defending her life.
Other resources:
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Jeff, you're right on the money with your point about clemency for convicted killers. I'm very disappointed in the Florida Conference statement. Should've been about 100 words and unambiguous; this isn't an occasion for moralizing about the "Need for Health Care Advance Directives." The Pius XI reference in point number 5 struck me as very, very odd.
I had to research Church teaching when both of my parents were ill unto death. The only time it is licit to remove articial feeding and hydration is when the body cannot process the food or water, as when cancer has eaten away the digestive system.
This is not the case for Terri, and removal will be murder pure and simple. Murder for which, if they did this to an animal they would be imprisoned.
The governor can grant a reprieve to a guilty criminal, but not to an innocent victim?
God grant me the trust to know that all things happen for our ultimate good, even if I cannot understand it. Blessed Mother, please rain down your Son's abundant graces and change the hearts that need to be converted, and strengthen those that need the courage to save Terri. If it be God's will that Terri should die at this time, please grant her and her family the consolation of feeling Your presence and love throughout the upcoming difficult time.
In Christ's peace and love,
Robin L. in TX
Maybe it's time for the Knights of Columbus to live up to their name and start sharpening those swords.
One of the things we have been covering a great deal on LifeSite in the last few years is the move of Catholic medical ethics to adopt the "Principles" of Bioethics. Bioethics, is not a neutral term. Many people assume it is merely a new name for the normal medical ethics that have been in place for centuries. It is not. "Bioethics" always needs to be capitalized. It is a normative system of ethics to apply a strict form of utilitarianism to the medical sphere and is almost completely at odds with traditional Catholic medical ethics based on the natural law. It is also called "Principlism" because it is based on the three bioethics principles of autonomy, beneficence and justice, as laid out in the congressional hearings where Bioethics had its birth.
The manner of interpreting those three principles is Bioethics. More and more Catholic hospitals and chanceries are adopting these Bioethics Principles on the advice, (often) of their Jesuit and Jesuit-trained advisors. Bioethics, also called Principlism, also called has a great deal to say about personhood, how it is defined, who has it, who doesn't, whether it can be partial, whether a person can become a non-person by progressive stages. It therefore has a lot to say about the use of embryos for research (pre-personhood) and the killing of old and disabled people (post-personhood). We also get a lot of medical research done on the 'decisionally incapacitated' mentally ill. Bioethics is a new, normative system of ethics that is seeping into medical practice and displacing ethics based on the natural law. That groups like the Legionaries and Opus Dei support and teach Principlism in their universities is a big part of the problem. There is a determination to see these ideas, which are entirely a product of post-modern utilitarianism, 'Christianized' somehow. It is how we get places like Loyola U. Hospital doing pre-viability cesarans on anencephalic children and insisting it isn't abortion.
There is also a huge denial, especially among Catholics, that the utilitarian principles of Bioethics is in essential conflict with Catholic ethics. Bishops just love sounding 'nuanced' and 'balanced.' They hate more than anything to look like hicks. So they tend to like Bioethics because it makes them sound thoughtful and intelligent to the secular academics who are now running most of the medical and scientific world in accord with utilitarian ethics. They hate more than anything in the world to say anything that would unequivocally place them in the camp of us traditional Catholics (note the small 't' here.)
That is why the Florida bishops statements sound all wet to us. They sound hellish from a Catholic Natural Law perspective, but they are well in accord with the Principles of Bioethics. We can see how those are dangerous because we, being Catholics, think in Natural Law. This is a language that most of the episcopate has forgotten. More even than Latin. When they say things in Utilitarian, it comes out sounding like the satanic rationalization it is. But they really really can't see it. I don't know how to fix the problem, but I think I am starting to understand it.
If you want to look it up, read Dianne Irving's stuff on the American Bioethics Advisory Commission website. I would suggest you start with this one: "What is Bioethics" http://www.all.org/abac/dni010.htm
It will surprise, perhaps, very few here to find out that what we now call Bioethics, had its origin at Georgetown. Bill Clinton and Principlism. Nice.
Something else that will fail to shock, is that the congressional hearings at which Principlism first appeared, were called by Ted Kennedy. Batting a thousand so far Ted.
Catholic "conferences" which cannot bring themselves to support Catholic teaching should be dissolved.
That would leave us without Catholic conferences. Not that this would be a bad thing necessarily. Just to say that nearly all these bishops conferences water down the faith. It is part of the nature of the beast. The Catholic Faith is not a thing for committees, but a personal confession that Jesus Christ is Lord (and all that goes with that.) The Faith always suffers when the Church gets too beuraucratic. God doesn't save men in batch lots, but one soul at a time. It is why when persection comes, the committees make themselves scarce. It is to be remembered what Anne Muggeridge said in her immortal book, the Desolate City. The only collegial action of the original twelve bishops recorded in scripture was 'and they all fled'.
Quite right. The word ethics becomes highly suspect when a modifier is tacked onto it (bioethics, situation ethics), because there's no reason to do so except to suggest that ethics can vary with circumstances or with subjects. Other weaselly uses of language to disguise intent include the two I make sure to teach my children: be wary of anything that calls itself "public safety", and of any government department that's called a "Service".