The Twilight Zone Part III (Can't we be done?)

This is the last exchange, I promise. When the ad hominem attacks start that's when I quit engaging. We find ourselves in the last episode...

On the Outer Limits of the Twilight Zone - Where intelligent males don't interact with illogical women.

Dear Mary Ann,

"The first law of history is not to dare to utter falsehood;
the second, not to fear to speak the truth."
Pope Leo XIII

I agree but you apparently do not. My error is expecting a woman to be logical. You can find all of the arguments you want to support your position, but they are not according to right reason. I wish you well but do not pretend to teach or interpret the word of God. Jesus did not ordain any women for good reason. As for the bishops they could have stopped abortion and pedophilia a long time ago. Sodomy is rampant in the Church.

You say, "A baby bottle is a feeding tube." While I agree there is a similarity, baby bottles are being used to substitute or replace the natural source, a mother's nipples. This is an example of unreasonable thought processes. Breast milk is a natural process of life designed by God for a particular purpose.

Ask the Vatican if your baby bottle argument is reasonable.

Sincerely in Jesus Christ,
Fr. David


Dear Father,

Thanks for the laugh. Bet you think I'm a bad driver too. Your last email was so filled with irrelevancies and (dare I say it) illogic that I'm almost speechless. But, being a woman, I know that's impossible so I'll respond.

I note you didn't address the Vatican documents that have come out on this. Do you question the logic of the men who wrote them as well? I also note you didn't answer my question about whether you are a priest in good standing. As for your ad hominem attack and extraneous insult of women in general -- the ad hominem is the last ditch approach of a man with a bad argument.

The most logical human (other than Our Lord who was God) was a woman, Mary. She was also a teacher and spiritual advisor to the first priests. I think God gave the priesthood to men because He had already raised a woman to the role of co-redemptrix. And you might recall that it was a woman, St. Catherine of Siena, advising a pope. She is also a doctor of the Church as are St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux. I try to follow St. Therese's little way of humility and that of the humble saint associated with the recently-celebrated feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Bernadette. Father Hardon often said only little people will get into heaven. Terri and Eluana are the little people (along with the unborn babies) whom you would kill by dehydration.

I was a little astounded by this statement, Father:

Those of you who have joined in the fight to have kept Terri Shiavo alive, or this 36 year old woman, Eluana Englaro, from the rewards of death will not have a part in rewards of God's kingdom unless you repent.

Who exactly is playing God? I can't imagine repenting for following Jesus' admonition to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty. I will serve Him in his least ones as long as I live and today the least ones aren't just in the womb, they are in hospices and nursing homes.

I wish you well and will pray for you.

Sincerely in Christ,

Mary Ann

An E-Mail Exchange from the Twilight Zone

Over the past few days I've been engaged in an email exchange with Fr. David Trosch about my posts defending Eluana Englaro's right to life. You may remember Fr. Trosch. He's the priest who, a few years ago, argued in favor of killing abortionists. That should have been a tipoff.

I would have bet that anyone who claims to be pro-life would share my view that starving and dehydrating the helpless to death is seriously immoral. Well, I would have been wrong, wrong, wrong in the case of Father Trosch. Over the next few days I'll present our email debate. Think of it as a soap opera...FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Episode 1 -- Entering the Twilight Zone - Dying of dehydration can be fun

Mary Ann Kreitzer,

I know a woman who can still speak who is being dehydrated and starved to death as I write. She has gone from 180 pounds to under 120 pounds. She is 5' 6" tall. She cannot eat or drink. Medications are no longer of help. She believes it would be pointless to be fed intravenously as it would just extend the suffering she is going through on a daily basis. She has many things wrong with her and even if something could be repaired other things would kill her, probably even the operations themselves. Her hospice care doctor has told her she should call her mother and tell her that if she wants to see her daughter while still alive to come quickly.

This woman is 46 years of age. She believes in God like most could not possibly appreciate. These last few weeks Jesus has been present to her most of the time. She says He is beautiful and want s to be with Him very much.
How much do you love Jesus? Why is it that you want anyone to stay in this life if they can be happy with Jesus in the next? My own father died when he was almost 87 years old. His mouth was so dry that he could not take even a small part of a consecrated Host without great difficulty. If given the precious Blood it had to be only a drop or two otherwise his tongue would react and it would be difficult for him to receive.

Why should the government (the people through taxation) have to pay to prolong the lives of a few when the same sums could be used to feed thousands. The purpose and goal of this life is not temporal happiness or a long life here and now, but to have a long and happy life with Jesus in the next. Passing from this life should be seen as a happy event that should be understood to be joy. It is not to be thought of with sadness, although I agree that there is a sense separateness that is cause for the momentary departure of a brother or sister of Christ.

Demons thrive on the torture inflicted upon living humans. They hope to have many humans join them in their suffering in Hell. Unreasonably prolonging someone's life serves Satan, not God.

To keep a person unnaturally alive is to sin against the will of God who has already determined the destination of the one passing from this life. All forms of unnaturally keeping a person alive, particularly without reasonable hope of recovery to a useful life, is against the will of God. Keeping an unconscious person alive on feeding tubes, etc. is unconscionable and unreasonable. If God wants a person to live, that person will live. Let God be the determiner of when a person is to die.

Wether we die at an early age or at 120 is up to God. Living a long life is no guarantee that one will be in Heaven. To play God by keeping someone alive who in the natural course of events would die is a condemning sin. Those of you who have joined in the fight to have kept Terri Shiavo alive, or this 36 year old woman, Eluana Englaro, from the rewards of death will not have a part in rewards of God's kingdom unless you repent. Vatican officials who have joined the fight to keep Eluana alive will have the most severe condemnation.

Jesus made it clear when He said: "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it. [Mk 8:35] -- He gave one description of Hell as follows: "where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' " [Mk 9:48] -- Saint Paul said: "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all." [1Co 15:19]

Perhaps a thousand preborn persons could be kept alive with the amount of money that is spent upon someone who gains no merit in Heaven for having an extended life they cannot benefit from. There are millions of people who are starving to death that would otherwise live if the money spent on trying save the life of a person, who will probably die anyway, were spent on them.

By TANALEE SMITH, Associated Press Writer Tanalee Smith, Associated Press Writer – Sun Feb 8, 7:59 am ET
HEALESVILLE, Australia – Towering flames razed entire towns in southeastern Australia and burned fleeing residents in their cars as the death toll rose to 84 on Sunday, making it the country's deadliest fire disaster.

Can you imagine a worse way to die? I can, knowing that after I die in such a fashion I could spend eternity in Hell for keeping a person from passing from this life to be in Heaven or where judges the person will be (sic).

Sincerely in Jesus Christ,

Fr. David


Dear Father,

I visit a nursing home every Sunday. Some of the people have terminal diseases and are dying. Most, however, are not. They are in different stages of dementia, or have limited awareness, or they are frail and unable to care for themselves. Does the fact they are more or less helpless mean we should withdraw their food and water and let them be dehydrated to death?

Eluana is not dying like your friend with the multiple problems apparently is.

She is brain damaged and has "diminished consciousness." Terri Schiavo also was not dying. She was brain damaged. The media speak about Terri (and now Eluana) as "comotose." She isn't. Pictures and videos of Terri showed her responding to her mom and tracking a balloon with her eyes, laughing at her dad's jokes, etc. How aware is Eluana? I can't say because she's been carefully hidden from view.

Some of your email is very disturbing.

Why should the government (the people through taxation) have to pay to prolong the lives of a few when the same sums could be used to feed thousands.... Passing from this life should be seen as a happy event that should be understood to be joy.

What are you saying here, Father? Are the handicapped and brain-damaged "useless eaters?" Should we do a cost benefit analysis on them and use that to determine whether we let them live or die? It's been done before. I sidewalk counseled for years at an abortion mill where a pro-abort escort argued that abortion "sends the little souls to Jesus." Your statements sound chillingly like his. They also sound like the philosophy of the gnostics who believed suicide could free one from the body.

I was with my dad, my mom, and my father-in-law when they died. I had cancer myself when I was 39. I've stared death in the face and walked up to its door with loved ones. But there is an ocean of difference between a person who is actively dying and whose body is shutting down and a handicapped person whose body is perfectly fine and able to absorb nutrition. In the first case nutrition is useless and may even increase the person's suffering. In the second nutrition is essential. Terri wasn't dying until she was deliberately dehydrated. The same is true of Eluana. She is not "unconscious" any more than a severely retarded child is unconscious. They have limited capacity. From the perspective of those who want their death, the problem isn't that they are dying, it's that they aren't. Eluana's dad wants her to die and neglect doesn't look quite as evil as the lethal injection. But actually, for Eluana, the suffering will be worse which will ultimately lead to the argument for the "more compassionate" and quick needle in the veins -- like putting an animal to sleep.

You say, Whether we die at an early age or at 120 is up to God. Exactly! But these people are taking that decision away from God and usurping His authority by indirectly killing the person by neglect. Dehydration is a hellish way to die. Read the description about it on my blog entry.

You said...Can you imagine a worse way to die? I can, knowing that after I die in such a fashion I could spend eternity in Hell for keeping a person from passing from this life to be in Heaven or where judges the person will be.

Are you serious? None of us can keep a person from "passing from this life." I can't stop death and neither can you. What we can do, that is seriously sinful (as the Church teaches), is hasten people into eternal life by directly or indirectly killing them. That's what happened to Terri, Nancy Cruzan, Hugh Finn, and is now happening to Eluana. It is a moral evil that doesn't just impact the family who does it but the entire culture. And we've seen in history where it leads. Study the T-4 program in Nazi Germany.

I'll pray for you, Father. The murder of the helpless and sick through euthanasia (whether active or passive) is the diabolical twin of abortion.

To hear a Catholic priest argue for this breaks my heart.

Sincerely in Christ,

Mary Ann

Breaking News: Eluana Dies Unexpectedly

Italy's "Terri Schiavo" Dies Suddenly

Note the statement from Eluana's physician that she enjoyed almost perfect health in the 16 years since the auto accident that left her in a minimally conscious state. Will there be an autopsy to determine the cause of Eluana's unexpected death or will there be a rush to cremation?

The Latest on Eluana

Italian Senate tries to halt mercy killing

Political struggle over coma patient Eluana

For a comparison of Eluana and Terri Schiavo see my post at The Catholic Guys.

Diabolical History Repeats Itself...

Eluana Englaro may well be murdered in the next few days or weeks because of her father's desire to see her dead. She would not want to live in her current state of diminished consciousness, he says, and Italy's high court agrees. So this young woman faces the looming threat of dying from dehydration, an agonizing death despite the honeyed and consoling words of the death peddlars who claim it is a gentle way to die. Ask a woman who's experienced dehydration during her pregnancy because of excessive vomiting how gentle it is.

Dr. David Stevens, a doctor who has worked in Africa where the leading cause of death is dehydration from gastroenteritis describes it. "As dehydration begins, there is extreme thirst, dry mouth and thick saliva. The patient becomes dizzy, faint and unable to stand or sit; has severe cramping in the arms and legs as the sodium and potassium concentrations in the body goes up as fluids go down. In misery, the patient tries to cry but there are no tears. The patient experiences severe abdominal cramps, nausea and dry-heaving as the stomach and intestines dry out.
By now the skin and lips are cracking and the tongue is swollen. The nose may bleed as the mucous membranes dry out and break down. The skin loses elasticity, thins and wrinkles....The person stops urinating and has severe headaches as their brain shrinks from lack of fluids. The patient becomes anxious but then gets progressively more lethargic....Some patients have hallucinations and seizures as their body chemistry becomes even more imbalanced. This proceeds to coma before death occurs. The final event as the blood pressure becomes almost undetectable is a major heart arrhythmia that stops the heart from pumping."

These symptoms explain why feeding tubes are left intact so sedatives and anti-convulsives can be given, not only to reduce the pain of the victim, but the distress of staff doing the killing.

The threat to Eluana heralds a black stormcloud looming over the world and not for the first time.

I invite readers to look back to 1939. Germany was already immersed in social Darwinism's doctrines of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Since about 1920 propaganda for eliminating those whose lives were "devoid of value" flooded the German marketplace led by the views of Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding, a doctor and a jurist, not unlike those leading the culture of death today. When the Nazis came to power they continued and expanded propaganda for cleasing the gene pool producing films and novels that promoted "mercy killing" and stressed the expense of maintaining these useless lives. Catholic institutions for the incurably sick and mentally ill, which were likely to resist euthanasia, were sytematically closed.

The euthanasia program in Germany was coded T4 which stood for Tiergartenstrasse 4, the address of a villa in Berlin where the Nazis administered the General Foundation for Welfare and Institutional Care. It was managed by Philipp Bouhler, head of Hitler's private chancellery and Hitler's own doctor, Karl Brandt.

The euthanasia order was written by Hitler in October of 1939, but backdated to September 1st. It read: "Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, to the end that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment [menschlichem Ermessen] of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death [Gnadentod)." From this quiet beginning grew a monstrous program of killing, not by Nazi thugs, but by doctors and medical staff in white coats.

Hitler believed that killing handicapped children would be accepted by the German people with little objection. The preceding May, parents of a severely deformed infant born in February (Gerhard Kretschmar), petitioned the Reich to have the child killed. A local pediatrician had refused because it was illegal so the parents sought an exception to the law. Hitler authorized not only the murder of the child, but a systematic program to register all defective children. Like the midwives in Pharoah's time, ordered to identify all the baby boys so they could be eliminated, the doctors and midwives of Germany were ordered to report all children born with severe disabilities: hydrocephaly, mongolism, spastic conditions, any kind of malformation including cleft palate, etc. the program initially targeted children under three but the tentacles soon reached out for older children including those designated juvenile delinquents as well as adults, especially the mentally ill and retarded. According to Fredric Wertham's A Sign for Cain, the Reich murdered 300,000 Aryans before they turned their final solution on the people they considered a defective race.

All evil starts with the first act. The Reich's euthanasia program began with one father, Richard Kretschmar, eager to kill his poor little handicapped son. And so it goes today. A father who cannot see beyond his daughter's physical impairment insists on dehydrating her to death. Despite the fact that the order of nuns caring for her wanted to continue, he denied their compassion and moved her to a killing center in northeast Italy more amenable to his monstrous intent. That the killing, if it is allowed, will take place a stone's throw from where the holocaust began chills the heart. Eluana's father is the spiritual twin of the ardent Nazi farm laborer, Richard Kretschmar. It is an evil history that should not repeat itself and a victory for another father, the father of lies himself.

May the Father of us all and His Son Jesus Christ protect Eluana and all those threatened by the Nazis of the present age.

P.S. Look carefully at the picture at the top of the page. Little Gunther and his two brothers had a degenerative disorder. The three little boys were gassed at Brandenburg, one of the facilities for eliminating imperfect children, but only after being studied by doctors. After their deaths, the ghouls in white coats studied their brains - all in the name of science.

Please contact the Italian Ambassador:
Ambassadors's Office Tel.: (202) 612-4401/4/5/6 Fax: (202) 518-2156 and ask for Eluana's immediate protection.
Email: (press and public affairs offices) Tel. 202- 202- 612-4440/4
politici.washington@esteri.it and stampa.washington@esteri.it

Pray for Eluana Englaro, Italy's Terri Schiavo

Last Tuesday 48 year old Eluana Englaro, who is in a state of diminshed consciousness due to an automobile accident in 1992, was moved from the religious hospice that was caring for her with love to an instiution that has agreed to participate in her killing. She breathes on her own but depends on a feeding tube for food and fluids. Eluana father's petitioned the courts to allow the killing and they agreed. Read more here and here.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is attempting to by-pass the president who refused to sign a bill to save the woman. Please pray for this young woman that action can be taken in time to prevent her deydration murder. I visit a nursing home every Sunday. Many people there also have "diminished consciousness." They are still precious and unique in the eyes of God.

You can contact them at:
Email: (press and public affairs offices) Tel. 202- 202- 612-4440/4
politici.washington@esteri.it and stampa.washington@esteri.it

Ambassadors's Office Tel.: (202) 612-4401/4/5/6 Fax: (202) 518-2156

I sent the letter below to the Italian embassy via e-mail.

GIOVANNI CASTELLANETA
Ambassador of Italy to the United States

Dear Ambassador Castellaneta:

The members of the Catholic Media Coalition express our concern and outrage over the refusal of President Napolitano to sign the Parliament's emergency measure to prevent the dehydration killing of Eluana Englaro. To disregard the will of the people expressed by the Council of Ministers' unanimous support for the law, Urgent Provisions on Nutrition and Hydration, is an act of executive tyranny.

I know that the relgious order caring for Eluana before transfer to the killing facility were willing to continue to offer full compassionate treatment to this vulnerable young woman. For the government to facilitate her murder is reminiscent of fascist cooperation with Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews during World War II.

Pro-life America is appalled at your president's active participation in violating Eluana's right to life. The end result will not only be the death of this poor woman, but a judgment on Italy from Almighty God. Please let the president know that we are praying for him to sign the order that will offer Eluana a reprieve. The holocaust in Europe began with the relaxed euthanasia policies in Germany eliminating those considered "useless eaters," the sick and helpless. It is chilling to see it beginning again in the heart of Europe. Consider Italy's reputation. Let it not be said that she is a mother who kills her sick children.

Sincerely,

Mary Ann Kreitzer, President
Catholic Media Coalition
www.catholicmediacoalition.org

"The first law of history is not to dare to utter falsehood; the second, not to fear to speak the truth."
Pope Leo XIII