Vatican Cardinal Meets With Family Of Terri Schiavo

[Itsthetruth]

Vatican Cardinal Meets With Family of Terri Schiavo

By Aidan Lewis Associated Press Writer
May 17, 2005
AP-ES-05-17-05 1543EDT

ROME (AP) - The family of Terri Schiavo met with a top cardinal Tuesday to thank him for the Vatican's support as they sought to keep the brain-damaged woman alive. Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, said that support from Cardinal Renato Martino and other Vatican officials had helped the family "spiritually" in their unsuccessful battle against a court order to have Schiavo's feeding tube removed.

The Vatican condemned her death as "arbitrarily hastened," and called the removal of her feeding tube a violation of the principles of Christianity and civilization. Martino said Tuesday that Schiavo's death was "an insult to human dignity."

The family said they would attend Pope Benedict XVI's general audience Wednesday, and Martino said the pope would be informed of their presence.

In a statement following the meeting, which also included Schiavo's brother and sister, Martino cited an address from Benedict earlier this month in which the pope said that "freedom to kill is not a true freedom but a tyranny that reduces the human being into slavery."

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB0DXAJU8E.html

[medeak]

1. wonder who paid for the trip to Vatican? n/t

[DemBones DemBones]

8. Why should it matter? If DUers can pay for someone's surgery,

contribute to funeral expenses, etc., then the Schindler's supporters in the struggle to save Terri's life have the same right to help the Schinders in any way they choose.

[medeak]

14. I hope you're being sarcastic

as I can't for the life of me see any relation between the two at all.

[DemBones DemBones]

21. Surely you're kidding. You say "wonder who paid for the trip?" as if it

were any of our business. I pointed out that people help their friends and allies.

[medeak]

24. The Shiavo parents have a mass mailing

that is more sophisticated than what we have on DU

[DemBones DemBones]

27. I have no idea if that's correct or not, but if it is, so what?

Why is it wrong for the Schindlers to have allies and friends? I doubt anyone has been forced to contribute to their cause, anymore than people were forced to contribute to Andy's surgery or Khephra's funeral costs.

[medeak]

26. you might like this place

http://pub1.ezboard.com/bcatholicdiscussion

[medeak]

17. it seems you agree with church not allowing paraplegics to marry?

did a search...perhaps I got the wrong impression..but it was disturbing to read your post as our dearest and best friend is a paraplegic.

[DemBones DemBones]

20. Your inference is incorrect.

Read my post again, please.

[medeak]

22. I did

Thus, an impotent man is denied a Catholic wedding because his physical impediment would deny his wife an essential part of marriage. You may not agree with the rule, but it is a logical rule meant to protect the woman and guarantee her a happy marriage.


Impotence has always been grounds for civil divorce, and for civil annulment (of a marriage unconsummated due to the husband's impotence), so it's not just the Catholic Church that thinks sex is an essential part of marriage.

[DemBones DemBones]

29. Those are the facts about impotence being used as grounds for

divorce or annulment in civil courts and the facts about why the Catholic Church won't knowingly allow a Catholic wedding between a woman and an impotent man (though I went into more detail.)

You inferred, incorrectly, that I think paraplegics should be prevented from marrying and suggested that that is what the Catholic Church teaches (paraplegics shouldn't marry.) The Church is concerned with married couples having healthy sex lives; impotence was the issue in the case cited, not the paraplegia that caused the man's impotence. I agree with the Church's concern but I don't know that a marriage in which the husband is impotent from the beginning can't be happy -- I think only those who have been in such a marriage could know.

If I were a priest asked to perform such a marriage, I think I'd decide whether or not to do so based on the individual circumstances as much as on Canon law, but I don't know how many priests operate that way. I do know that priests are not all hard-asses about Church law and suspect that many are not. Ours never preaches against contraception and doesn't consider it a sin. We had a lengthy thread in the Catholic group in which many Catholics said they'd never heard a priest say anything about homosexuality. (As I recall, one person said he or she had heard a visiting priest mention it on one occasion; no one else had ever heard a priest mention the topic.)

The fact that this priest refused to marry this couple suggests he's a stickler for Canon law, but it's also possible he knows this couple and has other reasons for thinking their marriage is inadvisable. We can't know that from the news story.

[Canadian Socialist]

35. I'm not Catholic or any religion

however, this brings to my mind a question. If a man becomes impotent AFTER marriage (in a church), does said church allow an anulment? I thought there were vows, like, in sickness and in health. I'm not flamebaiting here, I just don't know how the church (any church) can reconcile these views.

[medeak]

32. have you on ignore...sorry dude

can't read your post

[anarchy1999]

44. Oh for s &*^^%* sake. Come on Dem Bones, give it a rest!

You are better than this.

Quit it and stop it now.

[donco6]

2. I thought their 15 minutes ended weeks ago. eom

[Tempest]

3. They're stretching it out

The parents are now suing the husband to get access to her gravesite.

[NC_Nurse]

4. Geez

What jerks...I knew he should scatter them over the ocean. That's what I would have done. No chance of fundie circus "mourners" hanging around then...

[donco6]

5. Me too.

Let them have their "memorial" services out in the Atlantic somewhere. See how much media they draw.

[Tempest]

6. If they have their memorial service in the ocean

Do you suppose Michael will want to drill holes in the boat first?

[DemBones DemBones]

7. No, he'll sue to deny them any right to go out in a boat at all.

Anything to dig the knife in a little deeper, you know.

[Tempest]

16. You mean like the family dug their knife into him

For 15 years?

[donco6]

12. I'd help.

We'd be better off without the publicity hounds.

[CoffeeCat]

39. Michael won't need to drill holes in the boat...

The protester lugging around the giant, wooden cross will surely sink any sea-going vessel.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. What kind of man denies his in-laws access to his deceased wife's grave?

Oh, yeah, the kind who denied them a visit to her in her final hours.

[Tempest]

15. The kind of man

Who doesn't want his wife's grave site to become a media circus.

[DemBones DemBones]

25. For a man who dislikes media, he did go on the Larry King show and

otherwise use the media for his own purposes.

He got the courts to order their daughter's death, he kept them from seeing her when she was dying, he cremated her body against their wishes so he could continue to control her and deny them access to her. He has another woman and two children, he could let Terri go. When she was living, he insisted he had to have her die ASAP to fulfill his promise to her.

IF there was any truth in the whole "promise to her" argument, she's dead now, the promise is fulfilled, and I don't see him wanting to visit her grave regularly since he wants to move on with his life. Widows and widowers often do that. We all know when we marry that in almost all cases, one of us will outlive the other, just as we all expect to see our parents die.

Parents who lose a child, even a grown child, on the other hand, tend to want to visit the grave often. I've known some who visited a child's grave daily for decades. It's a way of coping with a death no one should have to experience, a death outside the natural order of things, even if it happens "naturally" and without a court order.

[sonicx]

33. And who were the people that hired Randall Terry?

The Schindlers decided to make it a media war. They lost.

[Tempest]

34. If you're going to make an argument, at least get the facts right

>>When she was living, he insisted he had to have her die ASAP to fulfill his promise to her. <<


This is a bullshit lie.

He didn't go right to the courts to have her tube removed. He cared for her for years before the court case started. He quit his job and trained to be a registered nurse so that he could care for her. Her parents praised him for years on how he was dedicated to her care. After years of caring for her, Terri's parents told Michael to move on with his life. That's when the court case to end her life started.


No sense debating with someone who doesn't have, or chooses to ignore, the facts.

[sonicx]

37. Also early on, the parents told him to date other women and did not ask

him to divorce her. Poor innocent Schindlers...

[carpe diem]

42. why do you ignore the fact that the brother and sister were with

...her until five minutes before she died and might have been allowed to stay had the brother not gotten into a fight with the police?... and the fact that the mother CHOSE not to see her daughter after Easter Sunday on the advice of her son?...(he said in one of HIS NUMEROUS tv appearances that he was going to advise his mother not to go back to see Terri and she didn't)...under those circumstances, why should MS risk that the last few minutes his wife spent in this world be in an acrimonious and volatile environment...the Schindlers showed a complete lack of respect for thier daughter/sister's privacy and dignity throughout the whole ordeal, there was no reason for MS to think that they wouldn't disrupt her final moments by creating some awful scene and then running out to report the gruesome details to crowds and media outside...

...there may be plenty of reasons to dislike Michael Schiavo, but if you have to LIE and DISTORT the facts to support your argument, it really undermines your effort and exposes the shallowness of your case...

Also, his brother was on Hannity a few days ago and said that Michael had not made any final decisions for her internment and when he did he would inform the Schindlers. He probably figures they'll turn it into a circus and wants to avoid his wife being made into any more of a sideshow...

[lynne]

38. Believe he was ordered by the Judge -

- to disclose the location of the grave to the parents - a court order he has yet to comply with, apparently.

[Demeter]

10. Disgusting

But then, the Vatican was making a big case about how John Paul II was suffering as he died. Catholics are into suffering, that's why they inflict it on so many. It's brotherly love, you see, the more time you suffer on earth, the less time you spend in Purgatory being punished.

I never said it was healthy!

[edbermac]

11. Did Martino meet with any victims of pedophile priests?

Somehow I doubt it...out of sight, out of mind...

[DemBones DemBones]

30. Positive stories about the Catholic Church are rarely posted in LBN, and

when they are, the thread sinks like a stone since so many here want to believe only bad things about the Church. Also, although the Church has done a lot to help the victims of pedophiles and to end the abuse, the secular media doesn't focus on those stories. They do have their agenda, you know.

[alcuno]

31. If I went to Rome, I could "meet" with the Pope.

It's easily arranged.

[donco6]

45. Actually, after your uninformed posts

I'm more comfortable than ever with my low opinion of the RC Church.

[sonicx]

13. They have some nerve talking about human dignity. nt

[CatholicEdHead]

18. Why is this still news?

This has been highly distorted from the start.

[HockeyMom]

19. Cruzan Case 1990

The Supremes ruled back in the Cruzan case in 1990 that feeding tubes were artificial life support, the same as respirations, dialysis, etc. Just because it is tube and not a machine does not make it any less ARTIFICIAL. We are not born with feeding tubes.

I cannot believe some people cannot see this. You are not denying they a ham sandwich and a cup of tea. They cannot or don't want to see the difference.

[Seabiscuit]

23. Martino and Schindler pull each other's plugs, choke on verbal diarrhea!

[medeak]

28. self delete

[DanCa]

36. Disgusting exploitation.

Freedom to kill does this include the war an iraq? When will these embryo loves stop exploiting people and getting into everyone else's lives.

[readermostly]

40. Sean Hannity has asked Mark Fuhrman to write a book to investigate the

possible incident that caused Terri's condition in 1990. Since this is a rush job (coming out next month, which means it's probably already written, allowing for editing and publishing). I am skeptical of this book. As recently as the last week or ten days, Michael Shiavo's family has stated that they were not contacted for input. Just seems way too quick, and in such a short amount of time, I'm wondering if it can be that thorough.

[kskiska]

46. The book probably won't even include the autopsy findings

given the rush to get the book out. Sounds like a propaganda piece.

[rainbow4321]

41. 14 minutes, 59 seconds...

<sigh> tick-tock-tick-tock...ding! ding! ding! Time's up!

[anarchy1999]

43. WHO PAID FOR THE TRIP? ENQUIRING MINDS WANT TO

KNOW! So the family has an audience, in ROME! How did they get there?

[kskiska]

47. As Mike Schiavo's brother said on Larry King

Who is paying the Schindlers' bills? None of them are even working. Bob Schindler has no job. His son is supposedly a teacher, but doesn't work. The longer they can keep this thing going, the more money the Schindlers make from the right-to-lifers.