Terri Schindler, a Retrospective -- The Murder of the Innocent and Vulnerable Continues!

A pro-life colleague called me last night to pick my brain about the Terri Schindler Schiavo euthanasia murder of fifteen years ago. We both travelled to Florida at the time to participate in a press conference outside the nursing home where Michael Schiavo had Terri under police guard to make sure no one gave her a sip of water or a bite of food. Like the infants left on the hillside to perish in ancient Rome, Terri too had to die -- burning up like the Christians Nero covered in pitch and lit on fire to illuminate his garden.  And local authorities would ensure no rescuers, including Terri's parents and siblings, could intervene. The horror included Michael, Terri's husband, and his paramour covering Terri in blankets to increase her dehydration.

As president of the Catholic Media Coalition and my own group, Les Femmes, I wrote quite a bit about the horrifying incident, so finding links for my friend who is doing an interview/retrospective today wasn't hard. I searched for my articles about Terri and found quite a few. It was a painful memory walk and reminder of the vulnerability of the innocent and the power of evil men to murder them. The power of evil will never overcome good, of course, but its lust for blood-letting and our often shrugging indifference covers our society in shame.

The bishops of Florida and the USCCB both abandoned Terri. Reading what I wrote then inflamed my anger once again, because the innocent are still the targets of our modern Herods. And the enabling religious leaders still surround and protect them. Did the New York bishops speak out against Andrew Cuomo's order mandating that New York nursing homes accept COVID 19 patients' despite the sure knowledge that they would infect the most vulnerable and likely kill many? Not that I'm aware! One could understandably wonder if this is a euthanasia strategy for eliminating "useless eaters." At least 4800 residents have died in New York nursing homes because of Cuomo's evil act, about 25% of the total victims in the state. The New York Post's Micahel Goodwin wrote on May 5th:

The killer fifth paragraph [of Cuomo's order] still reads: “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to ­admission or readmission.” 

Owners and managers said Tuesday they are not aware of any loosening of the policy. They also say that hospitals still are referring infected patients to them on a near-daily basis and they are expected to take them if they have an empty bed. 

To them, the March 25 order was a death sentence. Some facilities say they had no deaths or even positive patients before that date, but many of both since, including among staff members....

Cuomo chortled over the murder of babies in the womb and even lit up the Empire State Building to celebrate signing legislation. He isn't celebrating the latest debacle. In fact, he's pretending he didn't know. But nursing home directors have the documents. 

Ironically, unlike killer Cuomo, it was the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, who tried to save Terri while her bishop, Robert Lynch, threw her to the wolves.

The Lynch scandal includes homosexual advances to a senior diocesan employee resulting in a lawsuit and huge severance package for the employee. A longtime advocate of homosexuality, Lynch couldn't be bothered to defend Terri and Church teaching on life!

The bishop later added insult to injury by allowing the marriage of Michael Schiavo to his live-in lover, Jody Centonze, at a diocesan parish. Canon lawyer Pete Vere described the scandal at the time and it's violation of Church law:

The first paragraph of Canon 1090 is clear: “One who, with a view to entering marriage with a particular person, has killed that person’s spouse, or his or her own spouse, invalidly attempts this marriage.” In short, the church will not recognize your marriage if you kill your spouse while hoping to marry another particular person. After all, “Till death due us part” does not mean you can kill your spouse to marry another. 

Canon 1090’s second paragraph is similarly clear: “They also invalidly attempt marriage with each other who, by mutual physical or moral action, brought about the death of either’s spouse.” This means that the church will not recognize the marriage of two people who co-operated in killing the spouse of one person or the other. This co-operation may be physical or it may be moral and marriage need not be the original motive for the murder....

No reasonable person can deny that Michael Schiavo brought about his wife Terri’s death with the full intention of marrying Jody. While Terri was still alive, Jody became Michael’s fiancée, the mother of his two children and the object of his extra-marital engagement. 

As such, she publicly stood by Michael’s actions in bringing about Terri’s death. This is moral collusion. I do not make this charge based upon gossip, hearsay or idle speculation. Rather, it is a matter of public record. The civil courts allowed Michael to bring about his wife’s death. Michael and Jody’s actions were well-documented by the media and shared with millions of people. 

Unlike most other impediments to marriage, only the Pope and certain high-ranking Vatican officials could permit Michael and Jody to marry in the Cchurch. The second paragraph of Canon 1078 is clear: without this dispensation from Rome, the church will not recognize such a marriage.

Lynch should have been thrown out years ago, but, like many of his homosexual-advocating brethren, he appears to be under protection and was allowed to retire in 2016 and is still lionized on the St. Petersburg diocesan website. Where will his miter land on Judgment Day I wonder? I'm offering my rosary for him today.

Unlike the deliberate murder of Terri in the Florida nursing home, the unnecessary deaths in New York were probably not directly willed. They didn't have to be. When the vulnerable are seen as non-persons, like Lazarus at the gate, the rich and mighty, like Andrew Cuomo, can ignore them. Many ignored Terri, among them, the high and mighty in the U.S. Church. The USCCB were busy meeting to work for an end to capital punishment while Terri burned with thirst. The cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on her, an innocent one, mattered not a snap to most of the bishops while they expended our resources on efforts to protect the guilty.

Some things, sadly, never seem to change.

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Terri Schindler and for the conversion of those complicit in her murder. And for all those vulnerable in danger today -- from the little ones in the womb to the most helpless sick and elderly. Compassion these days seems in pretty short supply among many. The elitists cry crocodile tears for the dying while they imprison and threaten the living who are trying to do nothing more than put bread on the table for their children, like Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther. Luther was arrested, imprisoned, and fined $6000 for defying the lockdown mandate to feed her family.

Maybe Luther, accused of being "selfish," should have listened to the message Nancy Pelosi sent when she showed off her freezer full of gourmet ice cream. Hey! Your children want bread? "Let them eat ice cream." Don't you know...We all need to heed and follow the compassion of the elitists whose contempt for the hoi polloi has never been more evident than during this plague. The judge who sentenced Luther and all the politicians making these draconian orders have guaranteed paychecks unlike the 33 million Americans who've lost their jobs. Some of those jobs will never come back as businesses fold around the country.

If you want to revisit Terri's story go here and here. And you can visit Terri's foundation here.

Meanwhile, pray for our poor country. What will be left when we go back to the "new normal."