Vatican Denounces
Terri Schiavo's Death
Italian
Cardinal Renato Martino is interviewed in his appartament in Rome, Thursday,
March 31, 2005. The Vatican
denounced the death of Terri Schiavo on Thursday, saying the woman's death was
“arbitrarily hastened'' by removing her feeding tube.
March
31, 2005 ROME. The Vatican
denounced the "arbitrarily hastened" death of Terri Schiavo on Thursday
as a violation of principles of Christianity and civilization, and a cardinal
described her end as a "death sentence executed through a cruel
method."
"The
circumstances of the death of Ms. Terri Schiavo have rightly disturbed
consciences," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in the first
statement from the Holy See on the case. "An existence was interrupted. A
death was arbitrarily hastened because nourishing a person can never be
considered employing exceptional means."
"There
is no doubt that exceptions cannot be allowed to the principle of the
sacredness of life from conception to its natural death," the Vatican
spokesman said. "Besides the principle of Christian ethics, this is also a
principle of human civilization."
Cardinal
Renato Martino, a top Vatican official, said Schiavo's death was a "human
tragedy, but also an ethical, juridical and cultural tragedy." He told
reporters her loss of life in a hospice in Florida to a "death sentence
executed through a cruel method."
"We
are against the death penalty, and that was practically a death penalty that
was inflicted on her," Martino said. "That was not a natural death.
It was an imposed death."
"When
you deprive somebody of food and water, what else is it? Nothing else but murder,"
Martino said, adding that he was speaking on the case "according to the
teaching of the pope." The pontiff has spoken on behalf of providing food
and water, even through artificial means, to patients like Schiavo.
Pope John Paul II was
informed of Schiavo's death, Martino said. The cardinal likened the pope's
frail health, including resorting to a feeding tube, to Schiavo's case.
The
"comparison is easy," Martino said. "Everybody will do all the
best to keep him alive, to feed him the way it can be done." Before the
Vatican statement Thursday, the Holy See had left comment in the hands of
Martino, who heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and other
prominent church officials.
"One
hopes that from this dramatic experience there matures in public opinion a
greater awareness of human dignity, and that it brings greater protection for
life even at the legal level," Navarro-Valls said Thursday. Speaking of
Schiavo, another leading Vatican official, Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins,
said "an attack against life is an attack against God, who is the author
of life."
The
cardinal said John Paul "teaches us not only with his suffering, but also
with his teaching the great respect for life. Life is the most precious thing
we have." Martino, asked who should be held responsible for Schiavo's
death, replied: "the judges, her husband, whoever denied access" to
feeding. The cardinal had previously appealed for Schiavo to remain on the
feeding tube, which was removed by court order March 18.
Schiavo
suffered severe brain damage 15 years ago. Her husband said Schiavo told him
she would not want to be kept alive in a vegetative state, and insisted he was
carrying out her wishes by having the tube pulled. Her parents opposed its
removal.
(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino).