"If Terri Schiavo were sitting on death row for killing three people while knocking over a liquor store, the Bishops of Florida would be fervently pleading for her life now."
She would also merit a plea for mercy from Rome. The weak responses from the hierarchy are almost as disheartening as the act itself.
Well put, Dale.
Rob: I agree: Rome's silence is also deafening--especially, IIRC, when they routinely issue statements in opposition to every execution in the U.S.
Mark: Thanks.
This, of course, assumes Rome knows about this. As George Weigel has noted, Rome is not on-line. The reason Rome intervened for whathisface in Missouri is because the Pope was paying a visit to St. Louis at the time and his attention was directed thither. Rome does not routinely go around following the local news about executions. Unlike the Feds, they don't have the elephantine bureaucracy capable of such news gather activities.
Mark:
Yes, I suppose that's a reasonable possibility. God knows that if anyone in Rome were reading the Bp.'s most recent statement, one would be hard-pressed to understand what was going on.
Then again, I've been told that at the very least the Nuncio has been advised about it.
I don't have access to it, but I was told by good sources close to the friends and family (who were also very disappointed with the bishops) that the Holy Father intervened not once, but twice for Terri.
Pete:
I'm delighted to hear it--but why isn't this more widely known?
This is the sort of thing that could galvanize support for Terri.
Er, the above was mine.
Rome may very well not know about this whole sordid affair, but the defenses for inaction still ring hollow: after all, the Florida bishops are appointees of John Paul II. Is the Roman bureaucracy too small and ill-equipped to find men to be bishops who would at least fight for the life of a Catholic woman being starved to death?
Excellent points, Dale and Fr. Ray. At least you're honest men. Would that the Church had more such men to confront the institutional hypocracy, fascination with intellectual fashion and cult of papal personality that defines contemporary Rome all too well.
Peace, all.
Prefacing my tentative support for the prevailing viewpoint in blogdom, a few observations:
1. Like a death row case, the legal battle over this has seen the inside of nineteen different courtrooms. It seems clear the judiciary is taking a hands-off approach to a matter it sees as a judgment call by what it should (and probably must) consider competent medical authorities. (There is no proof otherwise.) As political bodies, judiciaries seem to align themselves into the tried and true camps: the activist hands-on folk seem to be the liberals, and Florida's Republican-leaning bench sitters don't want to upset the status quo. The prevailing winds are against St Blogs in this case; they always have been.
2. The husband's lawyers have conveniently maneuvered this case around the issue of Terri's medical condition. In any private medical care system, there is little precedent for an outside party getting a second opinion on her condition. Her heart stopped thirteen years ago, right? Thirteen years is a long time to wait for recovery. If an alternate medical opinion couldn't be conjured in these years, is it possible we're not talking "hack" doctors?
3. Instead of the morality of the husband being on public trial here, it has become more a question of the believability of prolife protesters. Whether prolifers have been outmaneuvered by the Evil Press over these past thirtysome years or not, clearly, any protesting viewpoint is not considered newsworthy.
The issues I'd be interested in seeing discussed: Are conservatives sympathetic to this case willing to stomach a higher degree of government intervention in disputed cases of dying people? Has the mainstream prolife movement been compromised, and if so, is there anything that can be done about it?
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