WASHINGTON — The Catholic Media Coalition has declared November 30, 2003, “Theresa Schindler Schiavo Day,” aiming to bring attention to the plight of the severely disabled Florida woman whose estranged husband continues to seek her death by starvation. Catholic Media Coalition President Mary Ann Kreitzer wrote a letter to Bishop Wilton B. Gregory, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, asking for the assistance of the bishops in the effort.
Kreitzer describes the Schiavo case: “A hitherto unknown Catholic woman, Mrs. Theresa Schindler Schiavo, has become a unifying symbol for the disabled, the abandoned, and those persons for whom society has no use. Terri Schiavo, a 39-year-old Florida woman rendered cognitively disabled from an undetermined cause, embodies the characteristics of persons whose lives appear to lack 'quality,' whom a pagan society would willingly eliminate through court ordered euthanasia.”
Kreitzer warns: “The Schiavo case is purposefully being used as a wedge to further the cause of physician assisted suicide and to bring euthanasia within the legal boundaries of the Constitution under the same ruse of privacy rights that are employed to kill the pre-born. After all, there's not much difference between an umbilical cord and a feeding tube, is there? The resemblance between Schindler vs. Schiavo and Roe vs. Wade is unmistakable.”
In her letter, Kreitzer begs the bishops for strong leadership saying, “we ask our bishops to publicly enunciate the Church's teaching regarding euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, and the moral requirements of care for all sick and disabled individuals as well as those facing a terminal illness.” Stressing the point she notes, “Catholics need to know that food and water, no matter in what form they are delivered, are the God-given right of all persons. The removal of nutrition/hydration with the subsequent intent to cause death, as in the case of Mrs. Schiavo, is strictly forbidden by Catholic moral teaching.”
See the Catholic Media Coalition Website and Terri Schiavo's family site
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
