NEWSFLASH from "Inside the Vatican"!

An Innocent Woman Is Dying

The Terri Schiavo case prompts Vatican outrage. Can anything be done to save the dying woman? Also, the text of a little-known, and shocking, affidavit...

By Robert Moynihan, Editor, "Inside the Vatican" magazine

VATICAN CITY -- The case of a dying woman in Florida would not normally be a focus of attention for "Inside the Vatican."

But the case of Terri Schiavo, 41, severely brain damaged 15 years ago, and now deprived, since Friday, by court order, of food and water, has prompted outrage in the Vatican, where it is being seen as a kind of "Rubicon" being crossed during this Holy Week 2005 in the ongoing battle between what Pope John Paul II (himself in precarious physical condition) calls the "culture of life" and the "culture of death."

In this case, the "culture of death" is making a major, and possibly decisive, advance, paving the way for widespread acceptance of "euthanasia," or "mercy-killing" in western society, and indeed throughout the world, a number of Vatican officials are saying.

A tube that provides water and nourishment to Terri has been removed; this will lead, inevitably and soon, to her death. Otherwise, she would not die, at least for a considerable time, doctors agree.

No one in Rome seems ready yet to call for "pre-emptive intervention" to save Terri's life -- the type of intervention Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State, approved of in the Balkans in the 1990s, at the time of Serbia's "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo.

But it is apparent that, unless something dramatic is done immediately, this woman will be starved to death.

If the legal institutions of a society fail to protect innocent human life, can those institutions continue to be the accepted arbiters of our social life?

Where are the US bishops? Where are the US Cardinals? Where are the men and women of good will, who normally would defend an innocent against those who would murder her?

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The Vatican used the words "absurd" and "terrifying" on Tuesday in regard to the Schiavo case, going so far as to say that removing the brain-damaged American woman's feeding tube amounted to capital punishment for someone who has committed no crimes.

In a front-page editorial, the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano criticized a U.S. federal judge's refusal to order the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube.

"She has no possibility of being 'restored' to a 'normal' life. Therefore Terri Schiavo must die," the editorial began. "This is... the absurd and terrifying reason" for the judge's decision, it said.

A top Vatican moral theologian, Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, also criticized the ruling, saying it legitimized a "cruel" death by hunger and thirst for Schiavo. Sgreccia heads the Pontifical Academy for Life.

"It's not euthanasia in the literal sense of the word," Sgreccia told Vatican Radio. "It's not a good death, it's a death provoked by a cruel act. It's not a medical act. I confirm the moral judgment doesn't change, because it remains an illicit and serious act -- even more serious since it appears the decision over who lives and who dies has become a question for a court."

In its editorial, L'Osservatore Romano said Schiavo had been condemned to an "atrocious death: death from hunger and thirst."

The Vatican paper's remarks reflected earlier comments from several Vatican officials, including Cardinal Rento Martino over the case. Pope John Paul II has strongly condemned euthanasia throughout his 26-year pontificate.

"Inside the Vatican" will have a complete report on the Vatican's reaction to the Schiavo case in its April edition, due out after Easter.