The Death of Terri Schiavo - Part Two

(continued from previous post)


The closest thing to a collaborative effort of bishops speaking out on Terri's behalf came from the Florida Conference of Bishops. On February 28, they issued a statement titled "Continued Concerns for Terri Schiavo". While not as strong as it might have been, the statement was unequivocal in asserting Terri's right to continue receiving food and water, saying "As long as they effectively provide nourishment and help provide comfort, we should see them [food and water] as part of what we owe to all who are helpless and in our care." Furthermore, they quoted Pope John Paul II's address to the International Congress on the Vegetative State:

I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.

The bishops' use of the Holy Father's statement indicates that they understood him to be authoritatively presenting Church teaching. They understood that Terri's case was not about "end-of-life" issues or the "right-to-die", but was about providing the most basic human care to someone in need.

The Holy See itself also spoke out on behalf of Terri's right to live. On February 24, Cardinal Renato Martino, the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said on Vatican Radio, "If Mr. Schiavo succeeds legally in causing the death of his wife, this not only would be tragic in itself, but would be a grave step toward the legal approval of euthanasia in the United States." He concluded his remarks by noting that "No one can be the arbiter of life except God himself." Less than a week later, on March 7, Cardinal Martino issued an even stronger statement. After saying that Terri would have death "inflicted on her over a number of terrible days, even weeks," the cardinal went on to observe that "the state of Florida has many laws on its books which protect animals", and that such animals received a greater protection under the law than did Terri. He demanded that "It must stop here and now", and concluded by saying that:

Society must realize that we can never inflict this sort of death on a human being, on any other creature, without each and every one of us and society as a whole suffering a terrible fate.

In what seemed to be a response to the progressive Catholic moralists who supported the removal of Terri's feeding tube, the Vatican's top bioethicist, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said on March 3 that removal of Terri's feeding tube would be "direct euthanasia", adding that "withdrawing Schiavo's gastric tube would not be a matter of allowing her to die, but would inflict death." The bishop explained that the academy usually does not comment on specific cases before courts, but "silence in this case could be interpreted as approval." Going farther than other churchmen had up to that point, Bishop Sgreccia denounced the rulings of the courts, saying:

As far as we are concerned, denying someone access to food and water is a cruel way of killing someone...Taking into account only medical and anthropological considerations, we feel an obligation to affirm that such a decision violates the rights of Terri Schiavo and, therefore, constitutes an abuse of judicial authority.

The "Exit Protocol"

In spite of the lobbying of the Schindlers, the untiring work of friends and volunteers on their behalf, the protests and witness of those praying for and defending Terri's right to life, and the courageous witness of some bishops and the Holy See, the efforts to save Terri failed and she died on the morning of March 31. While her death was reported and lamented worldwide, few suspected beforehand that the circumstances of her death would be subject to the cruelty, distortions, and media "spin" that had characterized so much of the coverage of the struggle over her life.

In spite of the lobbying of the Schindlers, the untiring work of friends and volunteers on their behalf, the protests and witness of those praying for and defending Terri's right to life, and the courageous witness of some bishops and the Holy See, the efforts to save Terri failed and she died on the morning of March 31. While her death was reported and lamented worldwide, few suspected beforehand that the circumstances of her death would be subject to the cruelty, distortions, and media "spin" that had characterized so much of the coverage of the struggle over her life.

One of the "memes" continually appearing in media was that Terri was dying a "peaceful", "quiet" death. Michael Schiavo and his attorney George Felos appeared on television numerous times and told viewers that Terri was going to simply "slip away". Some defenders of removing her feeding tube went so far as to describe death by dehydration and starvation as "euphoric." Such fanciful characterizations of Terri's death defied not only what many would regard as common sense, but medical evidence supplied by the very hospice in which Terri's death occurred.

Last fall Cheryl Ford, RN, a nurse from Tampa who has been very active in the efforts to save Terri's life, undertook a review of medical records from when Terri was first admitted to Woodside Hospice, on behalf of the Schindlers. Woodside Hospice is run by Hospice of the Florida Suncoast. It is of interest to note that Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, was a member of the Board of Directors of Hospice of the Florida Suncoast until the Terri Schiavo case began to attract widespread public attention a few years ago.

In her research, Ms. Ford found a document titled "Exit Protocol" in Terri's file. The document is on Hospice of the Florida Suncoast "Patient Care Notes" stationery, and "Symptom Management Orders" stationery. It is dated April 19 & 20, 2001. They are signed by Lisa Miller, Pharm. D, a clinical pharmacist on the staff of Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, and Dr. Victor Gambone, a physician affiliated with the hospice. The documents include the clinical pharmacist's notes of her conversation Dr. Gambone, and the order for medications signed by Dr. Gambone. The document was produced in anticipation of the first time Terri's feeding tube was removed, in 2001. It lays out, in clinical detail, the procedures to be followed in bringing about Terri's death by starvation and dehydration. It is too lengthy to be reproduced here in its entirety. However, a verbatim transcription is available at the March 24 post of my weblog, Thrown Back and the scans of the documents themselves are also available there for download.

Several parts of the "Exit Protocol" are worth summarizing here. After describing how Terri's nutrition and hydration, including daily vitamins, are to be discontinued, the document has the following note:

3. Monitor symptoms of pain/discomfort. If noted, medicate with Naproxen rectal suppository 375 mg Q8* prn.

[Q8* prn = "every 8 hours as needed". Naproxen is a pain-reliever, available in it's over-the-counter version Aleve.]

We were told repeatedly that dying by denial of nutrition and hydration was, as Michael said on the "Larry King Live" program, "painless and probably the most natural way to die". But if it's painless, then why was it necessary to "monitor symptoms of pain/discomfort", and why would medication be needed for that pain and discomfort?

Another section of the document deals with the breakdown in skin integrity which occurs in the "peaceful" death Terri endured:

4. Signs of compromised skin integrity — continue vigilant skin care, provide moistener to lips, consult wound-care specialist if needed.

As the body dehydrates, the skin loses its tone and dries out. Left untreated, this will lead to cracking and bleeding. The lips are even more sensitive in this respect. "Vigilant skin care" is the liberal use of lotions and moisteners to mask these symptoms. The lips must be continually swabbed with special moisteners, and have lip balm applied to them. In the last stages, though, in spite of such measures, skin breakdown often occurs. Because of the body's debilitated state, normal healing mechanisms do not function. Hence the need to consult wound-care specialists to deal with ulcers and open sores.

Another aspect of "slipping away" by starvation and dehydration is "terminal agitation":

7. Multifocal myoclonus or terminal agitation (sometimes caused by electrolyte imbalance). Consider diazepam rectal administration 5-10 mg. May repeat in 4 hours if not resolved then daily - twice daily as needed.

Myoclonus is twitching or spasm of the muscles. Multifocal means "occurring in many different parts of the body". This is usually the result of imbalance in electrolytes, the chemicals, such as salt, potassium, and calcium, which make your bodies internal electrical "batteries" work. Nerve impulses and muscle contractions are governed by electro-chemical reactions utilizing these chemicals. Dehydration causes these chemicals to be out of balance, interfering with normal nerve and muscle function. This can result in nerves and muscles "firing off" uncontrollably, causing spasm. The patient will writhe and become extremely agitated. The experience is similar to muscle cramps resulting from strenuous exercise (especially when one has sweated profusely), only occurring repeatedly all over the body. Diazepam (more commonly known as Valium) is a muscle relaxant.

In Dr. Gambone's medical orders, under the heading of "Pain", the doctor orders morphine:

Morphine (MSIR) 5-10 mg IM [IM = intra-muscular; that is, injected into a large muscle such as the buttocks] or by rectal suppository.

If no relief after reaching upper range, repeat dose in 1 hour and increase subsequent doses by 50% q 3 hour prn [every 3 hours as needed].

The use of morphine for pain requires little explanation. Here morphine is specifically prescribed for the pain Terri isn't supposed to be feeling. George Felos, under questioning from the press, admitted on March 29 that Terri had in fact been given morphine. In spite of this fact, and the descriptions by the Schindlers and others of Terri's "emaciated" condition, Felos said he "saw no evidence of any bodily discomfort whatsoever."

Terri's "peaceful", "quiet" death required the use of pain-relieving suppositories, muscle relaxants, constant swabbing of her mouth, and injections of morphine to manufacture. Most of the so-called "treatment" given under Terri's "Exit Protocol" was in fact not treatment at all. It was a regimen of medication intended to mask the symptoms of dying by starvation and dehydration, in order to perpetrate an illusion: the illusion that she was peacefully "slipping away", when in fact she was dying in a painful and brutal way.


The Husband Who Wasn't There

Terri's "quiet" death was not the only illusion created by George Felos and his accomplices in the mainstream media. Felos worked very hard to overcome Michael Schiavo's cold persona so as to portray him as a caring, sympathetic husband. This took some doing, as Michael's long-standing adulterous relationship with a live-in lover naturally cast doubt on his motivations and interests regarding Terri. But the illusions and spin were not limited to when Terri was alive; they also carried over into the descriptions of Terri's death itself.

The first indication of how Terri's death would be spun by George Felos and Michael's sympathizers appeared on March 28, 4 days before Terri died. CBS News erroneously ran an obituary of Terri on its website. While CBS quickly realized its error and removed the obituary, it was nonetheless up long enough to be reported by talk-show host Glenn Beck and read by thousands. After observing that Terri died "surrounded by stuffed animals and medical equipment", the obituary said that Michael Schiavo "was at the bedside of his wife Terri when she died".

Pre-written obituaries are not unusual: news organizations keep obituaries of many public figures on file, for immediate release upon their death. But Terri's is unusual in two respects. Firstly, it is inaccurate. Among other things, Terri was not "surrounded" by very much "medical equipment" at all. After all, she was being starved and dehydrated to death. She was receiving no life-support, and in fact no care aside from the measures, enumerated above, designed to mask the true nature of her death. But even more problematic is the description of Michael being "at the bedside" of Terri as she died. How could the writer of the obituary possibly know that Michael would be at her bedside at Terri's death four days beforehand?

Careful reading of the news stories from the days leading up to Terri's death uncovers more evidence of Terri's death story taking shape. After Terri's death, many media sources reported that Michael had been staying at the hospice, either "in a spare room", or "down the hall" from Terri during the days leading up to her death. At least one report described Michael as having stayed at the hospice for the entire 13 days between the removal of the feeding tube and Terri's death. But the earliest story I found mentioning Michael's supposed bedside vigil with Terri comes from March 26, only five days before she died. Furthermore, Schiavo attorney George Felos, when questioned by the media on March 28, "would not say" whether his client was "staying full time at Hospice". Why would Felos refrain from saying something which would so obviously make his client appear sympathetic? The simplest explanation is that it wasn't true, and a good attorney like Felos would be very careful not to actually state an easily verified untruth on the record.

However, by the evening of March 31, the day Terri died, Felos was telling CNN that Michael Schiavo had been staying at the hospice for the previous two weeks "in a room just down the hall" from her. Again, if that was true, why wasn't Felos willing to say it 4 days earlier? Furthermore, it is interesting to note that in the 8 days between the removal of the feeding tube on March 18, and the first questions about Michael's presence on March 27, the press took no notice of either Michael's presence, or his arrivals or departures. Given the small army of reporters and the large crowd of vigil-keepers constantly present at the hospice, it strains credibility to suppose that Michael could have come and gone from the premises entirely unnoticed over the course of two weeks. It also strains credibility to propose that Michael could have remained sequestered at the hospice for two weeks straight: taking his meals there, being separated from his girlfriend and children, not even going home for a change of clothing during the entire period. An Agence France-Presse story of March 27 also seemed to notice the difficulty in substantiating Michael's presence, remarking that "no one knows the exact whereabouts of the husband right now", and that "no one knows how he gets to and from the hospice."

The Schindlers and Fr. Pavone also noted that, in all of the time they spent with Terri (twice or three times daily totaling several hours a day) during those final weeks, they never once saw Michael at the hospice, nor did they see any evidence that he was there. Bobby Schindler remarked that on several occasions, he and his family were asked by the police to leave Terri's room, so that Michael could visit, but they never saw him. "We saw [George] Felos, we saw Deborah Bushnell [another Schiavo attorney], but we never saw Michael there," Bobby said.

Most disturbing is the strong possibility that George Felos' description of the scene at Terri's death was also a product of meme-making. Recall the erroneous CBS obituary mentioned above placed Michael at Terri's bedside at the time of her death, which had not yet happened. After Terri died, George Felos stated that Michael had been present at her death, and had "cradled her head" in his arms at the moment she died. While no one but Michael Schiavo and George Felos know for sure what really transpired in that room, the Schindlers are skeptical: Bobby Schindler explained that, on the morning Terri died, he and his sister Suzanne had been with Terri most of the night. One of the three police officers stationed outside of Terri's room then came in and told Bobby and Suzanne that they would have to leave, so that Terri's "condition could be evaluated." They knew Terri was close to death, and wanted to remain. Bobby disputed with the police, but "they were told in no uncertain terms that they had to leave," Fr. Pavone told CNN. Michael Schiavo, according to the Schindlers and Fr. Pavone, had ordered that the Schindlers could not be present when Terri died. Bobby told me that an interval of five to ten minutes elapsed while he was arguing with the police and waiting outside Terri's room. During this period, he saw no sign of Michael, nor heard any indication that he was coming. "For all I know, Father, my sister died alone in that room," he said. He and Suzanne were ushered away.

The next thing they were told was that Terri had died. After another 15 - 20 minutes, they, and Fr. Pavone, were allowed back into Terri's room. Again, there was no sign of Michael. Fr. Pavone, at the press conference he and Schindler attorney David Gibbs gave after Terri's death, also remarked on Michael's absence. He related, in answer to a reporter's query, that his "first question, as I went in the room after it was first announced that Terri had died, was 'where's Michael?'" He added, "He was nowhere to be seen."

It would seem that the CBS obituary represented a "script" of sorts for Terri's death, and that George Felos saw to it that the script was played out. Bobby Schindler says he was "disgusted" by how Michael Schiavo and George Felos misrepresented Terri's death: "The whole thing was staged, Father," he told me.

A Legacy of Life

While Michael Schiavo may have "won" the battle to end his wife's life, and George Felos may have "won" the test case he wanted, and had the script of Terri's death played out in the desired manner, the Schindlers are not despairing or ready to give up. They are grieving deeply, as anyone who lost a daughter or sister might be expected. Their grief is compounded by the fact that Michael Schiavo refused to allow Terri's remains to be given a funeral Mass or Catholic burial. As of this writing, Michael has still not disclosed to the Schindlers where Terri's cremated remains will be interred, or when he intends to inter them.

But the Schindlers vow to go on. At a memorial Mass held for Terri in the Southampton, Pennsylvania parish where she grew up, Bob told me that he intends to see to it that some good is brought out of his daughter's death. He said he wants "to make sure nothing like this ever happens to anyone else again." Bobby told me that he intends to give up his teaching career, and work full time to educate and inform the public about the truth of his sister's case and the dignity of life of those who are disabled or otherwise regarded as "unworthy of life". He said he wants to see to it that his sister's legacy "is a legacy of life, not of death."

At the reception following that memorial Mass for Terri, Fr. Pavone spoke powerfully about Terri's cause, the danger which her death poses for our society, and our duty to protect the lives of those who are weak and helpless. Terri Schiavo, though she could not speak, gave witness to the inherent and incalculable worth of every person. Fr. Pavone concluded his remarks by saying that Terri's death "is not the end of Terri's fight, it is the beginning of a new chapter! Death will not have the last word!"

I'm Going To Be On The Radio!

Specifically, on the Al Kresta Show this afternoon.

I'll be on in the 4:00 PM hour, and we'll be discussing the Vatican's "Instruction Concerning... Persons with Homosexual Tendencies", and my article "Homosexuality and the Seminaries: How to Read the New Vatican Instruction", which appears in the February - March issue of Crisis Magazine.

If you don't have a local Ave Maria Radio affiliate in your area, you can listen live on the internet at:

http://www.avemariaradio.net/catholic-online-radio.php

"Ave Maria Town": It's All About The Culture

Last week, there was a bit of a hullabaloo surrounding pizza mogul Tom Monaghan's efforts to create "Ave Maria Town", next to Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida. This would be a semi-officially "Catholic" village, and as such, would eschew the more destructive aspects of American culture, such as pornography and abortion clinics.

The desire to form a community embracing traditional values has provoked bitter denunciation from arbiters of Mainstream Culture (aka The Culture of Death^TM) such as Katie Couric, who attacked Monaghan on her "Today" show, saying:

“Some people,” she claimed, think Catholic values might be “deemed wholesome, but in other ways, I think people will see this community as eschewing diversity and promoting intolerance.”

When Monaghan's spokesman calmly explained that this town was open to all people of all faiths with a “traditional family value perspective.” Couric responded by hinting at anti-Semitism: “Does that mean you would welcome Jewish residents?”

Then she implied that the enterprise was racist:

“But do you think the tenets of the community might result in de facto segregation as a result of some of the beliefs that are being espoused by the majority of residents there?”

Then she upheld the basic tenet of our nation to be swamped in pornography, saying:

“At the same time you can understand how people would hear some of these things and be, like, wow, this is really infringing on civil liberties and freedom of speech and right to privacy and all sorts of basic tenets this country was founded on? Right?"

Quite apart from her blinding stupidity, what we are seeing here is the reaction of the elite Arbiters of Culture to what they see as a threat to its hegemony. I noticed this in the reactions last December to the Vatican's Instruction on homosexuals and the seminaries, as I was researching my article "The Vatican Instruction: Reactions", which appeared in the January issue of Catholic World Report (sorry, it's not yet available online). There was a visceral reaction from many on the Left to the Instruction, which was out of all proportion to a statement that, for anyone with a scintilla of understanding, said nothing new about Church teaching and adopted a common-sense approach to the issue.

But the exponents of our diseased culture clearly saw that the Vatican's Instruction was a challenge, both implicit and explicit, to the received opinion of our day. One of the seminary professors I interviewed for the article, Dr. Mark Latkovic of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, cogently observed:

Our culture tolerates the Church teaching about acts", he said, "but reacts vehemently when the Church tries to speak about nature." A document like this, he added "is a reminder to the culture that not everyone is on board with it."

Indeed, the Catholic Church is most definitely not on board with the culture. As for now, the culture does barely tolerate the Church teaching about acts, but the firestorm of reaction to Monaghan's project shows that even that tolerance may be waning. The "Ave Maria Town" concept, if it comes off, will be a visible, palpable presence of a substantial group of people who aren't "on board" with the culture. The elites cannot countenance such a thing, so their mouthpieces, such as Ms. Couric, will do everything possible to destroy it.

Remember: it's all about the culture. The Dominant Culture of our day is built on sterility, ugliness, and, above all, on deception. It cannot tolerate anything in its midst that amounts to a coherent, organized resistance, because then its rotten structure and destructive influence are exposed. The Arbiters of Culture oppose school choice because it weakens their dominance of one of the chief indoctrinators of the culture. They oppose parental consent laws for abortion because they strengthen the family, which weakens their grip on the culture. They promote consumerist materialism because a population with low sales-resistance is one easily manipulated. They push sexual license because besotted people are also readily manipulable. And they will do everything they can to stop an "Ave Maria Town" because a community that isn't "on board" with the dominant culture will be a sign that there is an alternative way to live. And such uppityness might give other people ideas. And where might that lead?

Yesterday Was One of Those Days...

A bright, beautiful, clear winter day. It's the kind of day, for those of us up here in the North country, that reminds us of how Winter can really be a beautiful season.

So here is a picture of my church, St. Stanislaus, on a similar beautiful Winter day:



This is the view down the little country road that leads to my church:



On a day like this, even the bite of the cold air on your nose and ears is a good thing.

New Crisis Article on "Doomsday Document" Online

The new February-March issue of Crisis Magazine features an article by yours truly on the recent Vatican Instruction on Homosexuality and Seminaries. The article is titled "Homosexuality and the Seminaries: How to Read the New Vatican Instruction". I try to provide some context and analysis of the document, and the issues surrounding its implementation.

I also explain the theological foundation of the Instruction, such as in this passage:

Because of the complementary and spousal nature of human sexuality, “the masculine identity is ordered to paternity,” said [Bishop Allen] Vigneron. Men are meant by God to be husbands and fathers, and this is “built in” to our nature. “Masculinity is by nature heterosexual,” Gotcher added, because men are ordered to fruitful love by heterosexual attraction to and relationship with the opposite sex. Anything that misdirects or deflects that capacity to love the opposite sex is disordered, because it frustrates God’s plan for human beings to mirror His creative love.

That homosexual tendencies would constitute a deflection or misdirection of this divine intention for paternity is obvious enough. Homosexual desires and acts don’t have the same life-creating capacity as heterosexual ones. Because of the sterile quality of homosexuality, it cannot participate in God’s plan for fruitful human love. A man, as the document says, who either practices homosexuality or has deep-seated homosexual tendencies isn’t suitable for Holy Orders because his masculinity has been disordered to such an extent that he cannot participate in complementary, fruitful, spousal love.

Please go over to the Crisis site and read it! And while you're there, if you don't already, go ahead and subscribe to Crisis!

Fr. Rob Down On The Farm (or the Ranch)

I was on vacation recently, and spent some time with my Dad down in Texas. When my Dad retired, he bought some property in the Texas "Hill Country", northwest of San Antonio.

He's got a fair bit of land, right on the Medina River close to where it enters Lake Medina. It's beautiful country, in its own stark way.

When I go to see him, I usually get roped into some project(s) of his, and this trip was no different. He's gotten into the ranch mode in a big way, including purchasing a pretty substantial tractor for the work he wants to do on the land. This is no glorified lawn tractor, it's a diesel-powered hydraulic transmission serious farm implement, only one step down from a full sized farm tractor.

So we spent a day hauling stuff and clearing brush, and pulling stumps with it. Most of the time he rode the tractor while I did the grunt work. Here's a picture of my Dad on the tractor:



But he did let me use the tractor now and then:



Heck of a vacation, eh? We did do some fun stuff, though. But we couldn't go fishing, as the river level was so low it stranded my dad's boat ramp and pier completely out of the water. Maybe next time.

Palestinians Take Step Closer to Self-Destruction

The Palestinians have elected the Islamic terrorist (not "militant") group Hamas to an overwhelming majority in their legislature, thus further radicalizing the Palestinian para-state.

Hamas, you'll recall, is the Palestinian terrorist organization that explicitly and unapologetically calls for the destruction of Israel in its charter, saying, among other things:

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.

and,

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.

Thus, the Palestinian people have officially ratified as their will that they will be governed by those who seek the destruction of Israel and the creation of a jihadist Pan-Islamic theocracy in the Middle East.

In the mainstream media, there has already arisen a chorus of Western Pollyannas who opine that, now that Hamas has the burden of governance, they will "moderate" their stance towards Israel. The above referenced Reuters story described unnamed Arab commentators as predicting "that pragmatism would eventually oblige Hamas to soften its position".

However, the leadership of Hamas itself gives no indication of this alleged "moderation". Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said (Via the invaluable Jihad Watch site):

"We have no peace process," he said. "We are not going to mislead our people to tell them we are waiting, meeting, for a peace process that is nothing."

In case that wasn't clear enough, another Hamas leader promised that they would "complete the liberation of other parts of Palestine". (Also via Jihad Watch.) Any doubts as to what that means?

In an unintendedly ironic display of fatuity, Time Magazine opened it's story on the Hamas victory by saying:

Dealing with Israel—in either sense of that term—is not a priority for Hamas right now, nor will it be for some time to come.

I'm sure that will console the Israelis: "Don't worry, Israel, Hamas isn't going to try to drive you into the sea now. They have to consolidate their power and establish order in Palestine first."

Perhaps the most realistically clear view of what the terrorist victory means comes from this story from CNS:

Hamas' strong showing in Palestinian parliamentary elections will likely lead to an all-out war with Israel, a leading expert here said on Thursday...

Hamas itself will now have to make a choice, said [Dr. Ely] Karmon. It must either change its ideology and charter completely and negotiate with Israel; or, as it declared both before and after the elections, it will continue its armed struggle against the Jewish state, said Karmon.

In the second event, there is likely to be an "all-out war with Israel," said Karmon.

But given its new political power, Hamas will not have to rely on terrorism alone to fight Israel, Karmon said.

Hamas will have some 50,000 Palestinian Authority security forces at its disposal, Karmon said, as Hamas would be expected to install its own people as commanders of the army.

This election has put the Palestinians on a direct course for an armed campaign against Israel. And it has put the means to wage such a campaign in the hands of the terrorists. The problem for the Palestians is that the Israelis are, militarily, vastly superior. They can't win such a fight.

Or can they?

Overlooked by many is the fact that Hamas is the ally and, many experts would say, the client of Iran. The Iranians are energetically seeking, and may already have, nuclear weapons. Make no mistake, if Hamas initiates another campaign against Israel, and the Iranians have The Bomb, one way or another it will be used against Israel. Either the Iranians will use it themselves to assist their Muslim brothers, or they will supply one to Hamas for their use.

Either way, Israel is destroyed. And, either way, so are the Palestinians. And Iran sweeps in to establish a Sharia theocratic state, and the Middle East descends into the 9^th century. And the Holy Land, as Christians understand it, is once again cut off. Sound familiar?

I have always wanted to visit the Holy Land, but have put it off in recent years because I thought it was too risky to travel there. I'm beginning to think I might want to get over there soon. Barring divine intervention, I don't see how things there aren't going to get much, much worse.

Christendom College Seeks Classics Professor

The Department of Classical and Early Christian Studies at Christendom College announces that an Assistant Professorship position will be open in the Autumn of 2006.

It is desired that a successful candidate should have a Ph.D. in hand and be a generalist in Classics with the ability to teach Greek and Latin on all undergraduate levels; facility to teach composition in both languages is expected. An interest in teaching spoken Latin is desired.

The Department would welcome a candidate with experience teaching Koine Greek and ecclesiastical Latin, as well as one who possessed a foundational knowledge of Biblical Hebrew.

As a positive expression of the specifically Catholic character of Christendom College, in accord with the desire of the Holy See as expressed in the Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae, members of the faculty voluntarily make a public Profession of Faith (the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed) and take the Oath of Fidelity.

Located an hour and a half west of Washington, D.C. in the foot hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Christendom College is a small coeducational liberal arts institution dedicated to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.

Interested applicants should send a cover letter outlining their teaching philosophy and research interests, a curriculum vitae, three letters of recommendation, a sample of scholarly writing, and other relevant supporting material to Dr. William Edmund Fahey, Dept. of Classical & Early Christian Studies, 134 Christendom Dr., Front Royal, VA 22630. Inquiries about the position may be directed to Dr. Fahey.

By the way, Will Fahey is a good friend of mine, and he and the other faculty are doing some great things in passing on the Classical and Patristic tradition there at Christendom. For the right person, this position would be an opportunity to be part of something very important in service to the Church. Plus, Will is an all-around good guy!

Those of you in academia, please pass the word along.

Deus Caritas Est

Pope Benedict's new Encyclical letter, God Is Love, was released yesterday morning. The encyclical articluates the Church's understanding of divine love, how human love reflects that, and how the Church's mission is to make God's love present in the world theologically and pastorally.

The encyclical begins:

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”.

We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction...

I am still reading and trying to digest the document, so I won't try to give any analysis or comment. But I will say that I am very excited by what I'm reading.

You can read the encyclical here at the Vatican website, or download it here as a PDF file.

So, Michael Schiavo Got Married...

This weekend, Michael Schiavo married his long-time live-in girlfriend, Jody Centonze, with whom he fathered two children while he was still married to and professing his love for Terri.

Even more distastefully, he contracted this putative marriage in the Catholic Church:

Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze were married in a private ceremony at Espiritu Santo Catholic Church on Saturday.

"It was very emotional," said John Centonze, brother of the bride, just after the noon ceremony. "It's been a long time coming. A lot of things happened in between."

"A lot of things". A rather understated description of Michael's 5-year-long singleminded campaign to end his wife's life.

"Except for the fact that the world knows their name, it was like any wedding you've ever been to," said Michael Hirsh, who attended, and who is helping Schiavo write a book titled Terri: The Truth.

Well, I don't know - I have never attended nor presided at a wedding in which the groom was the principal agent of his previous wife's demise.

Hirsh estimated about 80 people attended. The priest offered no homily. Afterward the wedding party went to a reception at East Lake Country Club.

"The priest offered no homily". Well, what could the priest say? "Don't kill this one, Michael"?

Many, for example, over at Mark Shea's comment box, have reacted with disgust and outrage that Michael should have been permitted to engage in what appears a mockery of the Sacrament of Marriage.

I too, am disgusted and outraged.

Canonist Ed Peters brings up the question of whether the pastor of the parish involved or the bishop of the diocese should have permitted this marriage to be contracted. Specifically, he brings up the issue of crimen, by which, the Code of Canon Law (no. 1090) provides, "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."

Dr. Peters also raises some very good questions concerning the circumstances of this marriage:

A) was a Schiavo-Centonze wedding attempted under color of Catholic canon law; if so,
B) did the pastor of the place or his delegate first verify that "nothing stands in the way of a valid and licit [wedding] celebration" (1983 CIC 1066); specifically,
C) was the impediment of crimen incurred by Michael Schiavo; and, if so,
D) was a dispensation from the impediment sought and duly granted?

Given that the wedding took place in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, and that the Bishop of the dicoese, Robert Lynch, was constructively AWOL regarding Terri's plight, I think the chances are slim that Dr. Peters will ever get an answer to his questions.

However, as relevant as those questions are, and as repugnant as Schiavo's mockery of the Sacrament is, I think that even if a priest or bishop were inclined to try to prevent Schiavo's wedding, they'd have a hard time doing so, at least as Canon Law is currently understood and practiced in the US.

You see, Canon 1058 provides that "all can contract marriage who are not prohibited by law". In my Canon Law classes, I was taught that, in the absence of nearly certain knowledge of a canonical impediment (that is, those specifically enumerated in law) this meant that the right of Catholics to marry in the Church is nearly absolute. I and my fellow priests were taught that, in order to prevent a couple from marrying, you pretty much needed a smoking gun to justify it. Why? Because of Canon 18:

Laws which prescribe a penalty, or restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an exception to the law, are to be interpreted strictly.

In other words, unless the couple were related too closely, or one party was in religious vows or Orders, had perpetrated a fraud on the other party, had openly and expressly denied some aspect of the Catholic doctrine of marriage, had been convicted of murdering his/her previous spouse, or demonstrably fit one of the other defined impediments, you had to let them marry. You could urge a couple to delay their marriage, or you could even personally decline to witness it, but you could not refuse it altogether without a very serious reason, which you had better be able to prove.

So, in Michael Schiavo's case, it seems to me that the issue of crimen is not at all open-and-shut. Michael has never been charged with, much less convicted of, any offense related to his wife's death. And while an ecclesiastical court would not be bound by our civil legal system in making a determination of whether Michael instigated Terri's death, nonetheless the lack of any criminal charges against him would be prima facie evidence against such a determination. And, unfortunately, given the willingness of any number of clerical Quislings (such as Frs. Paris or O'Rourke) or to defend Terri's starvation and dehydration, Schiavo could bring plenty of witnesses to any canonical trial who would testify that his actions were not contrary to Catholic teaching.

Just as in the civil law, in Canon Law the issue isn't what one knows, it's what one can prove. And, much as it pains me to say it, I think it would be difficult to prove that Michael was guilty of crimen and thereby refuse his marriage in the Church.

If some canonist can show that I'm wrong, I'd love to hear why. I've often wondered if, perhaps, we've interpreted Canon 1058 too strictly. It seems to me that, quite apart from spousal murder, we are frequently allowing people to get married in the Church who have no business doing so.

In the case of Michael Schiavo's putative marriage, the only immediate consolation is that God, who sees all, knows precisely the status of his current union. And God, in the end, will not be mocked.

Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation Taking Advocacy Role

As I mentioned in a post on January 10, I was recently vacationing in Florida, and while there I spent some time visiting the Schindlers in St. Petersburg.

The Schindlers, though grieving for Terri, have not been idle in the months since her death. They have been working to re-organize the foundation they set up to aid in their effort to save her life for a new mission: As Bob succinctly put it, they want to "make sure that what happened to Terri never happens to anyone else."

And so, they have re-structured the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation as a tax-exempt corporation whose purpose is to educate the public about the rights of the disabled and to provide resources to families seeking to fend off attempts to take the lives of their loved ones. Bobby and Suzanne (Terri's brother and sister) have left their former careers and have devoted themselves full-time to the work of the foundation. They have made a number of speaking appearances, and Bobby has testified in front of several state legislatures that were considering laws intended to provide greater protection for the lives of the disabled.

They have opened an office in St. Petersburg, and have retooled the Terri's Fight website. They write on the website:

To our Dear Friends and Faithful Supporters,

No words can adequately express how grateful we are to every one of you who fought so valiantly to help us try to save the life of our dear daughter and sister, Terri. Please accept our most heartfelt thanks for your support, prayers and acts of kindness for Terri and our family. We have received tens of thousands of condolence messages, letters, cards and emails from all over the world.  We are forever grateful to you.

As a family we are still grieving our great loss. Since Terri’s death we have decided to carry her legacy of life and love forward so that her sacrifice will not have been in vain, and that others may avoid the same terrible fate...

Our family, Bob Sr., Mary, Bobby and Suzanne, are all working full time for the Foundation which will advocate for persons in danger of being killed because they have been deemed “unworthy of life”...

Please make a point of visiting the new site and offering your prayers and contributions to their work, so that Terri's legacy will be one of greater reverence for all human life, no matter how limited or seemingly "unworthy" it may be.

The Children of Roe

Yesterday was the 33^rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that struck down almost all legal restrictions upon abortion and created out of whole cloth the fictive "right" to abortion. There have been several articles in the last few days, such as this at National Review Online, examining, especially in view of the Samuel Alito nomination, the likely future of the abortion license.

I won't attempt to prognosticate whether Roe is likely to be struck down in the foreseeable future, though I eagerly long to see such a day come, and pray for it fervently. But what is clear to me is that, regardless of the legal status of abortion in our nation, much still needs to be done, in converting hearts, to change its moral status.

Before I entered the seminary, I spent a couple of years teaching Latin, both part and full-time, in public schools in suburban Maryland. In my last year teaching (knowing that I was going to seminary the following fall and perhaps, thereby, feeling emboldened), I announced to my classes that I would be absent the following Monday because I was participating in the March for Life (I took one of my "personal" days to do this). The reaction of my students was instructive.

Several of my students were outspokenly supportive and expressed their own pro-life convictions. A majority of them, however, were not. What was most striking were the reactions of a number of the girls in the class. They regarded abortion quite simply as their "right" - that was their only frame of reference. Considerations of the humanity of the unborn child or its claims on a right to life simply did not enter their thinking. They regarded efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade and outlaw or limit abortion as "taking something away" from them.

These kids had grown up in a world which had always had abortion. Their world-view was in part defined by "choice" and its consequences. They had assimilated the toxic self-absorption that the logic of Roe entails. It wasn't so much that they had a principled "pro-choice" position, as that they had internalized the mantra of "choice" which the organs of our culture have propagated for the past 30 years. And many of them had never heard anything approaching a reasoned defense of the pro-life position. These students are the children of Roe: pro-abortion by cultural osmosis.

Regardless of what becomes of abortion legally, the work of informing and changing the hearts the Children of Roe has barely begun. Even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the poison of that decision, and the whole intellectual-cultural edifice built upon it, will continue to circulate through our society for decades to come. Ultimately, the Culture of Life will not be built of laws, but built of the lives of a people who have come to see the meaning and dignity of human life, and embrace it as a gift to be treasured, rather than a thing to be tolerated, used, or destroyed according to our own purposes.

If Roe is overturned, it will not be the end of a struggle, but only a beginning. And that is why our primary weapons must be spiritual: Today was marked by our bishops as one for prayer and penance. Much more of these will be needed in the months and years to come.

Is The Biography Channel About To Misinform Viewers?

I wasn't going to post an update on my blog till tomorrow, as I'm in Florida on vacation right now. I spent yesterday evening with Bob & Mary Schindler, and this afternoon I visited Bobby and Suzanne at the new office they have set up for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation. But I'll have more to say about that later.

I want to alert you to the fact that The Biography Channel is airing a program tonight about Terri Schiavo, as part of its "Notorious" series, which "highlights the people who have become famous – for being infamous." I'm not sure how Terri herself was "infamous" or "notorious", but that's a minor quibble.

Far more problematic is the fact that even in the episode description there are at least two egregious errors of fact, and it presents the very issue that was contended in the case as a matter of fact.

The description reads in part:

Schiavo had been in a vegetative state since suffering a heart attack in 1990, which caused brain damage. She was the subject of a high-profile legal battle between her husband and her parents. Her husband wanted physicians to remove the feeding tube, arguing that she was brain dead.

Firstly, Terri never had a "heart attack". She was never diagnosed as having had a heart attack, and the autopsy definitively disposed of that myth. Also, even Michael Schiavo and his lawyers never contended that Terri was "brain dead". If Terri had been "brain dead", the controversy about her would never have arisen.

Those two errors could have been easily avoided if the producers of the show had done even the most rudimentary research. But given that the description states as a matter-of-fact that Terri was in a "vegetative state", when that was one of the central issues of contention in the dispute, the lack of accuracy in presenting even the most basic facts is, unfortunately, not surprising. It would appear that the producers of this show are prepared to simply regurgitate the
MSM Approved View^TM.

My suspicion regarding this is reinforced by this salient point: The Schindlers were never approached by anyone from The Biography Channel or A&E (The Biography Channel's parent company) for interviews or even any background material. The first that the Schindlers heard about this was today, in an e-mail from a friend. I suppose the program could rely only on already-published material, which would be merely lame on their part. But if they present Michael Schiavo or spokespeople for him without giving a similar opportunity to the Schindlers, then that would really be "notorious".

The show airs at 9:00 PM EST. I will try to watch it, but I may not have access to The Biography Channel. If any of you, dear readers, watch it, I'd appreciate a report.

Penguins in Bethlehem...?

After the 10:00 AM Mass yesterday, a cute thing happened. There is a family in my parish that has two young boys. The younger one is about 2-3 years old. After Mass, his mother was showing him our creche, which is hand made by parishioners, and fairly large. The boy was looking at and naming all of the animals. Well, he took out of his coat pocket a little toy penguin (his mom explained to me later that he had received a play zoo as a Christmas present), looked at it, and then looked at the animals in the creche, and then proceeded to put his penguin in the creche, facing the baby Jesus. I almost said something to correct him, like "I don't think there were any penguins there in Bethlehem." But fortunately, I stopped myself. I told myself, "well, if Jesus had been born in Antartica, I'm sure there would have been penguins gathered around the manger!"

Mom also told me that a couple of weeks earlier, they had been driving somewhere when, spontaneously, the older boy (about 5) started signing in Latin! We've been chanting the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei during Advent, and I had the choir do a couple of other Latin chants. I'm glad to hear that it's making an impact!

A Belated, But Nonetheless Merry, Christmas to You!


Byzantine Icon of the Nativity

I hope your Christmas was a happy, merry, and blessed one, and I hope it will continue to be so! Remember that Christmas isn't just one day, but lasts through the Octave, that is, until the eighth day afterward. So Christmas isn't over, it's just begun!

My Christmas was a good, but busy one. This is my first Christmas as pastor of my own parish, so there were a number of things I had to learn about preparing for the festival. I had several moments during the past week or so when I realized, "Oh, yeah, if I don't do that, it won't get done. I didn't get much sleep over the past few days. But my tiredness was of a good kind. And I rewarded myself with a nap yesterday afternoon, and by sleeping in today.

The Christmas Masses all went fairly well: there were minor glitches here and there. Several of those glitches were of my own doing. For example, I forgot to instruct the congregation to kneel during the creed at the words "and became man", and to do so myself, at Midnight Mass. I remembered at the 6:00 PM Mass, and the 9:00 PM Mass, but forgot at Midnight. Oh well... But on the whole the liturgies proceeded smoothly. For the most part good liturgy isn't about creativity, it's about fidelity: doing things as the books tell us and according to the mind of the Church.

My parish churches are both decorated beautifully: I was very gratified that so many people came out to help set up the decorations and make the churches truly splendid settings for the celebration of this most stupendous mystery of God becoming one of us.

And we had some nice music as well. I had gentlemen chant the Christmas Proclamation at the Midnight and 10:00 AM Masses, and I had the choir chant the "Puer Natus Est" as well. They also did a nice job on a two-part setting of "Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen" ("Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"). The people of my mission parish also put some nice music together: they sang a lovely 4-part setting of "Lo, how A Rose" and a song called "In Old Judaea", which I had never heard before.

It was a lovely first Christmas as pastor. I'm taking today and tomorrow off, enjoying a little "holy leisure". I hope you get some of that, too.

Homily For the Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 61: 1-2a, 10-11
1 Thess. 5: 16-24
John 1: 6-8, 19-28



Me in my Rose Vestments (sorry for the poor image quality)


"Where Is the Joy?"

I want to begin this morning with a question. This is a question for the kids here today; grownups, you're not allowed to answer. So, kids, if you know the answer, raise your hands. The question is this [steps out from behind ambo]: What color am I wearing?

[A child answers:] "Pink!"

Well, that's close, but not quite right. No, the color I am wearing isn't pink, it's rose. It may look like pink, but it really isn't, it's rose.

Now, the reason I'm wearing such an unusual color is that today is a day of special rejoicing for the Church. Rose is the color of joy, the color of rejoicing. And it's so special that the priest may wear rose vestments on only two days of the year.

So why are we rejoicing today? Why is today a day of joy? Because the light is coming! The light of the world is coming, and will soon be here. John the Baptist testified to the light, and told us "prepare the way of the Lord make straight his paths!". We can rejoice today because we know that God's salvation is coming soon. We can rejoice today because we know that Christ has already come, and will come again.

To live a Catholic life is to live in a world of "both... and". Jesus has both come already, and will come again. God's salvation has both been given to us now and is yet to be made complete. Creation has both been redeemed, and that redemption has yet to be consummated and fulfilled.

And so today we rejoice. We rejoice because Christ has come - he came as an infant in Bethlehem about 2,000 years ago, and we will celebrate that coming in just two short weeks - and because he is yet to come, he is to come again!

That is why, as we heard in our second reading, St. Paul tells us to "rejoice always". Indeed, this day gets it's very name from rejoicing. Traditionally, this day has always been known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for "Rejoice". And the old Latin chant that was always sung on this day also tells us of rejoicing. It began with the words "Rejoice in the Lord always", and it went like this:

[Sings beginning of chant] "Gaudete in Domino semper! Iterum, dico, Gaudete!".

[If you want to hear it, you can listen to it here. ]

Rejoice in the Lord always! I say again, rejoice!

We are called to live as people of joy, because God's salvation has been made known to us. God has given us the light of his Son, has given us, through Him, a share in his very own life.

You know, I have to wonder sometimes. Every Sunday, I come down in front here to distribute Holy Communion. And when I hold up the Host and say "The Body of Christ", I usually look right at your faces. And I wonder... I don't wonder about your faith, or devotion: I have no doubts about that. But what I wonder is "Where is the joy?" Because, as you come up to receive communion, many of you look like this: [I put on a downcast, gloomy frown.] It's as though you were coming up to receive a dose of medicine: something you know is good for you, but not necessarily pleasant at the time.

So I wonder, where is the joy? Where is the sheer wonder and amazement that God has so privileged us to come down to be with us? Where is the joy and awe that God should give us his very Self as food? Where is the elation that Christ has once again fulfilled his promise that He "will be with us always, even until the end"? Every Sunday is Christmas, every Sunday is Easter. So I say to you, Rejoice!

If you study the Saints, their lives and writings, you discover that they led lives full of joy. They were continually rejoicing. And that's not because everything always went well for them. It's not because they never had trials or difficulties. Indeed, they often bore tremendous burdens. They frequently met with opposition and frustration. It often seemed to them as though everything was going badly.

But they were able to look beyond the difficulties and trials. They were able to see through the setbacks and frustrations, to see that there were tremendous possibilities and wonders on the other side. They knew that the God who would see them through was the same God who came to earth on Christmas night. They knew that the God who raised His own Son from the dead would give them victory over their challenges. They knew that the God who was guiding and leading them was the God who was "with us always" in the Sacrament of the Altar.

The same possibilities that were given to the Saints are given to us. Our Lord longs, yearns, to make those possibilities real for us. The possibility of redemption, the possibility of transformation, the possibility of wonders and glories of which we can scarcely dream. Christ came to earth and died for us to give us all those things, and He will, if we but give him half a chance. All these things: possibilities of beauty and wonder and glory greater than the universe itself, lie in store for us. He wants to give them to us. He will, if we but let Him.

Rejoice in the Lord always! I say again, rejoice! The One who calls you is faithful, and He will accomplish it.

God on the Internet

Jonathan Last has a very good article on the Catholic blogosphere over at First Things. Of course, one of the things that makes it so good is that he quotes your humble scribe several times and links to this blog.

But seriously, even if he hadn't done those things, it would be well worth reading. It's a good overview of St. Blog's, and the opportunities and limitations presented by blogdom. But the fact that he quotes me does make it better...

It's Good To Be The Pastor, Part II

One of the things that has been keeping me busy over the last few weeks is trying to address some of the needs I have identified in the parish, and making preparations for the Solemnity of Christ the King and the season of Advent.

I've been re-training my altar servers. In so many parishes, the servers are really not properly trained, and consequently just sort of shuffle and bumble their way through the liturgy (not the case here, BTW). I resolved a long time ago that in any parish I pastored, I would personally devote time and attention to training my servers. Not only so that they will make the bella figura in the liturgy, but so they can really take pride in what they are doing, and see the true importance of their ministry. A good friend of mine remarked that the priest needs to see himself not just as teaching the servers what to do, but as forming them in God's service. So I've been trying to do just that. I think that here, as in any other ministry to young people, we need to challenge them with a high standard, with something they have to invest themselves in, and help them rise to the challenge.

I've also been re-training the Lectors and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. In this case, for the most part they didn't need to be taught what to do. But there were a few aspects in which those ministries had not been carried out in complete harmony with either the GIRM or the "Instruction on the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priest". So my goal is to bring our practice into conformity with the Universal Church.

In addition to those things, I have been spending a lot of time planning for the big solemnity, Advent, and Christmas. I've been thinking about music, decorations, etc. I'm starting to introduce some chant in the liturgy, so I've begun working with the choir on that. In my previous assignment as associate in a big parish, the director of liturgy and pastor took care of such things, and I didn't really have to worry about them. Here, we have me. It's a lot of work, but this is really the fun part of the job for me. I want our Christmas liturgies in particular to be as solemn and beautiful as they can be.

I'm also going to be shopping for new vestments and altar hangings for my two churches in the near future. We're really in need of these things - most of what we have is of '70's and '80's vintage, and are overdue to be replaced. That's fun stuff for a priest as well!

Next Sunday night I'm going to be visiting with our 8th and 9th grade CCD kids, and fielding their questions. I'm deliberately making it a sort of free-for-all. So say a prayer that I can answer their questions well, and help invite them to get to know Jesus and the Church He founded a little better!

By The Way, A Belated Thank You

One of my readers sent me a much appreciated gift about a month ago. He's a regular reader and knows my likes and foibles all too well. He sent me a bottle of 15 year-old Laphroaig (the really good stuff) and a couple of good cigars.

Thanks very much, D.C.! I'll be raising a glass in your honor very soon!

So Where Have I Been This Time?...

Well, I haven't really been, anywhere, except busy - if that's a place. In a sense it is a place. At these times I feel "removed" from the wider world in the activity of my parish and my priestly ministry, and while I listen to the news and read some of the other bloggers, I don't really pay more than cursory attention. Then I emerge, as I'm doing now, with a few observations and things to say.

But I've been having some fun as well. Last Thursday I went out for a few hours and did some pheasont hunting with one of my parishioners. He owns some property a few miles outside of town, and we walked the fields, following the trained nose of his chocolate Lab, Buck. A couple of times the dog got too far ahead of us and flushed a bird out of range, but otherwise he did his job well. I, on the other hand, did not hold up my end very well. Buck flushed 3 or 4 birds in my field of fire, and while I had good shots at them all, I must confess I failed to hit any of them. I do have the excuse of not having been out hunting for two years, and therefore being a rather rusty shot. After the third missed bird, the dog came back to me, and I'll swear he was giving me a quizzical look, as though he were saying "what's your problem?" I felt embarrassed enough to apologize to the dog, saying "Sorry, Buck. You did a good job, I just couldn't hit the broadside of a barn today." I'm going to have to go out and shoot some clay pigeons so as not to let the dog down again.

But my host did shoot a couple of pheasants, and, much like fishing, even a bad day hunting (or a day hunting badly) is a good day. And the following evening I joined him and his wife for a lovely dinner, featuring the pheasants he had shot, with some rice and a nice bottle of Italian wine.

This week the deer season opens here in Michigan, so half of the male population of my parish is off to various cabins and camps in hope of bagging that big buck. I've never been much interested in deer hunting myself. I like the getting out and walking around that pheasant and quail hunting entail. The idea of sitting in a blind or stand waiting for a deer just doesn't do much for me. But I wish the guys well.

"Do You Think That I Have Come To Establish Peace...?"

Today's Gospel:

Luke 12:49-53

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace
on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

While I don't think anyone would accuse me of being a Pollyanna regarding the human condition or what we face as Christians in today's world, this gospel is still a sobering reminder to me.

Our Lord's words should not be construed as a statement expressing his wishes, but a no - nonsense appraisal of reality: the reality of what happens when the Truth confronts Sin, when Love confronts Self. You see, we always have the choice of whether to accept and acknowledge the Truth, whether we will live for Love or for Self. And, unfortunately, some people, when confronted with the choice, will choose badly. Some sin one person wants to cling to will lead him to reject the Truth, and the One who brings it. Another person will reject Love so as to go on living with her Self enthroned in her heart.

And such people often react vehemently against the Truth and Love. It is not enough for them to reject it - they will not rest till you reject it as well. They will even go so far as to attempt to banish the Truth from discourse and society: to silence its voice, so as to avoid its continual and implicit accusation.

So Truth and Love, against all reason, bring about conflict. Indeed, the conflict is literally against reason, for Sin and Self are ultimately unreasonable. As a friend has written, "sin makes you stupid."

When the stupidity of Sin and the unreasoning, unrelenting tyranny of Self meet Truth and Love, the result is conflict and division. That conflict came to a head against Our Lord, and its confluence was Calvary. The Cross is where Sin and Self sought once and for all to destroy Truth and Love.

Fortunately, we know how that story ended. Sin and Self succeeded only in destroying themselves. Some, unfortunately, still cling to those defeated spectres. For those, let us pray.

Okay, Okay, I've finally done it...

A number of people have bugged me over the last few months to enable syndication of my blog. I've never really bothered about it before, because I don't use a syndicator or aggregator (or whatever the heck they are) myself. In fact, I still don't know what blog syndication is.

But I finally went ahead and enabled the Atom feed for my blog. So those of you who use Atom can now get my blog that way. (Whatever the heck it is.)

Just What Is a "Faith Community" Anyway?

A reader writes me and asks:

Dear Father Johansen,

Please straighten me out on a few newly adopted phrases I hear lately, first what is the difference between a Church, and a Faith Community?

Our beloved Pastor died this year, and we now refer to the Priest celebrating the Sacrifice of the Mass as the "Presider" rather than the Celebrant ....."Our Presider today will be Fr. (first name).

I reply:

You're right in sensing that something's a little hinky about these changes in terminology.

People or institutions change the terms they use in order to try to affect the way people think about things.

The phrase "Faith Community" is meant to place the emphasis on the "horizontal", subjective relationships between parishioners, rather than the "vertical" relationship between the people and God. It is part of the tendency in "progressive" catholicism to see the church as "the actualized community celebrating itself". Using a phrase like "Faith Community" also helps to de-emphasize the fact that we are part of a larger entity, the Church, which is, of course, spread throughout space and time. It helps to disconnect the faithful from their sense of membership in and accountability to the larger Church. Such a term helps people to think of their faith as a merely subjective local, privatistic matter. It helps aging hippies forget about that mean old official "Church" (made up of the Pope, the Vatican, etc.) which so obstinately refuses to enact their adolescent fantasies.

The word "church" has a fairly well-defined meaning, which the Church herself has expressed in her Tradition. The phrase "Faith Community" is a nebulous gassy emission, which is designed to evoke certain emotional responses, but means almost anything the user wants.

That the use of the term "Faith Community" is accompanied by the abandonment of the term "celebrant" and replacement by the term "presider" is not surprising. Strictly speaking, the term is inaccurate, and may betray faulty theology. A chairman or chairwoman of a committee or legislature "presides" over a meeting, that is, ensures the smooth running over business that is largely transacted by others. While not exactly a passive spectator, one who "presides" is generally not the chief actor in the business at hand.

In a liturgical setting, a bishop or other prelate may "preside" at a Mass celebrated by another priest, at which he himself is not a celebrant. In such an instance, the bishop or prelate exercises a largely ceremonial function, and is not the primary liturgical actor.

So to call the priest who celebrates Mass the "presider" is at least erroneous. The word "celebrate" comes from the Latin celebro, which means "to solemnize, to keep a festival", "to honor, praise". The priest gives fitting honor and praise to God by solemnizing the New Festival of Christ, the Mass. The priest is the chief actor in the Mass - it is he, who, acting in persona Christi, makes the sacramental action happen. He is not merely a chairperson who sees to the smooth running of the liturgical proceedings.

So you can see what the term "presider" is intended to bring about: It reduces the priest's role to that of a sort of glorified "master of ceremonies". It conceals his role as the one who actually brings about the sacramental reality of the Eucharist by his action. The use of the term "presider" has its origins in the horizontalizing, levelling tendency of "progressive" catholicism. It is the product of an exaggerated "eucharist as communal meal" theology, which sees the eucharistic action as happening primarily in the "gathered community" rather than in the sacramental action of the priest. It is a desacralizing tendency, and is completely at odds with a truly Catholic understanding of the priesthood and the Eucharist, as expressed in our authentic Tradition.

It's Good To Be The Pastor, Part I

So, I've been here at St. Stanislaus for almost 4 months, and I'm starting to get a sense of the parish and it's people. The people here, as I've written before, have been wonderful. They've been very welcoming and generous. I've been invited by a number of parishioners to dinner at their homes, and frequently parishioners will drop by with a jar of home-made jam, or some farm-fresh eggs, a cake or some other goodies. So I'm in no danger of going hungry...

My secretary/business manager is Hannah. She and her husband are long-time parishioners, and they've both become invaluable to me. Hannah deals with all of the accounting and paying the bills, etc, which is just as well because that's the kind of stuff that just puts me to sleep. Of course, I oversee things and keep tabs on the finances - it's my responsibility as pastor - but I'm glad to have her to deal with the nuts & bolts of it. Hannah's husband Russell is a big help to me, helping me set up for Mass several times a week, and generally doing countless favors for me.

The nice thing about a parish this size is that most everybody knows everyone else, at least by name, and frequently much more closely. One blessing and/or burden is that, because we're a small rural community, it seems like everyone is, in one way or another, related to everyone else. When I came here several parishioners warned me to be careful if I ever say anything about a parishioner, because there was a good chance someone within earshot was related to him! It will probably take me years to sort out who all is related to whom and how.

I'm blessed by my parish because the parishioners are so active and involved in parish life. Last weekend we had our annual Harvest Festival, which is the parish's Big Event in the fall. People come from all around to eat, buy things at the craft fair, and enjoy a Sunday afternoon in the country. The food was fantastic - there was turkey and beef and mashed potatoes (real - nothing out of a box), and stuffing, 5 or 6 different salads, all kinds of vegetables, and a plethora of desserts. Of course, I had to sample many different desserts, in order to develop a full sense of the diversity of the offerings.

This involvement also translates to a deep sense of "ownership" of the parish. My people care deeply about their parish, and will give quite generously, not only of their money, but of their time and talents, to help out. They want the parish to grow and prosper, and they want to be a part of what goes on. They also have a keen interest in making sure that things are well maintained and taken-care-of. They know that this is their parish, and it represents and reflects their faith.

Which is as it should be.

more later...

Feast of Our Lady of The Rosary



Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of the Rosary. This feast is celebrated today to commemorate the great victory of the combined Christian fleet over the invading Moslem Turks at Lepanto on this day in 1571. (You can read more about the battle itself here.)



The Battle of Lepanto

Pope Pius V, who instituted this feast following the victory, had urged all Christians to pray the Rosary to ask Our Lady's intercession and protection, to hold back the Turks and grant the Christian forces victory.

This battle, while it did not completely end the Moslem threat of invasion of Europe, nonetheless was pivotal, as it broke the Turkish power at sea for some time to come, and gave the Christian world renewed hope and unity against the invaders.

This victory also is a lasting reminder of the power of Our Lady's intercession, and the power of the Rosary.

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us!

The Miers Nomination, or, Mark Shea Comes Unhinged

Mark Shea is a friend of mine, and I have more or less shared his attitude toward the Republicans and President Bush that they are allies of convenience, giving them support because their policies are much more pro-life than the Democrats. On my part, I also believe in things like limited government and, generally speaking, economic liberty. And, like Mark and many other conservatives, I have grown increasingly frustrated by the President's seeming abandonment of the conservative principles that got him elected.

And, like Mark and many others, I reacted to Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court with "Harriet who?"

But, unlike Mark and others, I do not think it is yet time to go all chicken little, proclaim that the sky has fallen, and say to the Repubs "the hell with 'em". I also do not think it is the height of insight or analysis to simply dismiss the President's appointment of Miers as "stupid, stupid, stupid."

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not defending the appointment of Miers. As many others have pointed out, this nomination is utterly deficient. President Bush could have done far better. But I think more can be said than that it is "stupid". To dismiss the President's action as "stupid" is a refusal to think about it. Charity requires more, and, frankly, so does simply trying to understand it.

The President said something in his press conference yesterday morning which seemed quite telling, and that practically no one else seems to have picked up on. The President said of Miers, "I know this woman's character," or something pretty close. This is very much the Bush style, to put character over "paper" qualifications. The president has never been one dazzled by academic distinctions or swollen resumes. Indeed, he ran for president on a "character" platform. He almost granted that Al Gore was the brainy, wonky, intellectual, but argued that he was the better choice on the grounds of character and principles. So it shouldn't surprise when he takes that same tack in a presidential appointment. What Bush is saying is "I know this woman, and I think she has the right stuff." Yes, that does boil down to "trust me". But it's not the same thing as merely "stupid". The real question is, do you think the president is a good judge of character?

Another thing is that many conservatives have been saying that this appointment was a "surprise", that it came from out of the blue. While I too was surprised at the choice of Miers, I wasn't surprised that the president chose a "stealth" candidate. Because the president has shown time and again that he is very reluctant to get into pitched political fights.

Many conservatives, sensing that their hour has come, and their influence has increased, have been spoiling for a fight. They've been itching for the opportunity to have that last open battle, in which they can put the liberals to flight once and for all. Pat Buchanan, interviewed Monday night, said that he thought Senator Harry Reid sounded relieved at the Miers nomination because Reid didn't want a confirmation battle, as Reid knew that the Dems would lose such a battle.

I for one do not share Buchanan's optimism. I do not think it is yet time for such a pitched battle. While conservatism has grown and is growing, liberals are still far too numerous and dominant for anything like assurance of victory. Fighting a premature battle and losing would do great damage and accomplish little. The liberals made their inroads on the culture over the course of 50 years. We will not undo that all in a decade or two, and certainly not in one all-out battle. It seems to me that the President has a similar view: far better to take incremental gains than to risk an all-out fight that you may lose. The president and I may be wrong, but I don't think that's merely "stupid."

Well, I'm Back!

After my 3-month hiatus, I'm returning to blogging. Sorry to have been silent all this time, but I've been pretty busy, getting settled in to my new rectory, getting to know my parish, and generally trying to get a handle on what being a pastor is all about.

I'm still not completely unpacked - I still have some boxes to empty out, and there are a few things I haven't found places for yet. But I'm working on that, a little at a time.

The people of my parish have been wonderful: very welcoming and generous. They've really made me feel "at home" here. I just need to mention that I'd like something or like something done and "bingo", it happens. I've had a number of invitations to parishioners homes for dinner, and consequently enjoyed some good polish cooking!

Being pastor is a whole new ball game for me. While obviously, I'm doing many of the same priestly things that I did while I was an associate, I'm the only one doing them here. And people look to me for answers and decisions in a way that they didn't when I was associate. There have been a few times when I've had to bring myself up short and say "Oh yeah, I'm the one who has to make a decision about that..." I'll have some more thoughts on being a pastor later tonight or tomorrow.

Thank you all for your encouraging e-mails over the last three months, and for checking back on my blog periodically. Thanks for wondering what happened to me. I'm going to try to be here regularly again. Obviously my parish is first and foremost, but I think I have the time to ventilate and bloviate a little!

"The Death of Terri Schiavo" Now Online

My article "The Death of Terri Schiavo", which appeared in the May issue of Catholic World Report, is now available online.

In this article, I describe and analyze the events and circumstances surrounding Terri's tragic death, and uncover some information you may not have seen before, such as:

Judge Greer took it upon himself to decide which tests Terri could or could not have, prompting one attorney to say that the judge "practiced quite a bit of medicine" in Terri's case.

Terri's death did not take place in quite the manner which the mainstream media reported.

I also explained, almost two months before the autopsy results came out, why the contention that "Terri was bulimic" was nonsense.

Terri's death, like much of the information concerning her condition while alive, was the object of spin and outright disinformation. In this Catholic World Report article, I try to unpack the distortions and give you the truth.

Some Pictures of My New Parish

Last week I posted the news that, at the end of the month, I will be leaving St. Joseph parish in St. Joseph, Michigan, where I have been an Associate Pastor since my ordination four years ago. I will be moving to St. Stanislaus parish in Dorr, Michigan, to become Pastor there.

I've made a couple of trips up there, to meet people and get acquainted, and to start moving my stuff up there. On the last trip, I tooks some photos of St. Stanislaus, and its mission, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Watson, MI. It was an overcast day, so I couldn't get any good exterior shots of the churches, but I got some good interiors.

Here's the interior of St. Stanislaus:



As you can see, it's a lovely little church. It seats about 200 people, I'd guess. It still has all the statues and the high altar. It's all been very well taken care of, too. And, yes, that is a communion rail up there in the sanctuary! This picture was taken while Eucharistic Adoration was going on. It's certainly a good sign that the parish has regular adoration.



A close-up of the Sanctuary

Here's a picture of the mission church, Sacred Heart in Watson, Michigan:



Again, this church is another little gem. The stained-glass windows in Sacred Heart are particularly lovely.



The Sanctuary at Sacred Heart Catholic Church

I've been blessed with two beautiful churches. I'm grateful that no "up-to-date" liturgical consultant ever got his hands on these churches to "renovate" them. I begin as Pastor on June 29 - next Wednesday. Pray for me!

I Was Wrong...

On Wednesday morning, I predicted that the autopsy report for Terri Schiavo would in some way purport to draw the conclusion that Terri was in a PVS.

I was wrong about that. But that's the kind of thing I'm happy to be wrong about.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Dr. Thogmartin, the Pinellas County Medical Examiner, and Dr. Stephen Nelson, the consulting neuropathologist, were quite measured and reasonable in the conclusions they made concerning Terri's neurological state. They stated clearly in the report, and reiterated several times during Wednesday's press conference, that PVS is a clinical diagnosis and cannot be confirmed by autopsy. They confined themselves to stating that Terri had severe brain damage, and that such damage was "consistent with" a diagnosis of PVS.

A reporter questioned Dr. Nelson about whether Terri's autopsy results meant that Terri's family could not have interacted with her, as they claimed. Dr. Nelson, to his credit, said quite emphatically, "no, not at all". He again reiterated that pathological studies cannot confirm PVS. This conforms with what other neurologists have observed, that there is no correlation between the size of the brain, or the number of neurons present, and a person's cognitive function.


But I Was Right...

Unfortunately, the measured, reasonable conclusions of the autopsy report have not stopped ignorant journalists and pundits from making erroneous and outrageous claims about what the autopsy "proved". In my previous post, I quoted Boston neurologist Dr. Peter Morin, saying that he expected "gross overstatements regarding the implications of the neuropathology." Dr. Morin's pessimistic expectations have been realized: News reports such as this AP story describe the autopsy report as "vindicating" Michael Schiavo in his contention that Terri was a vegetable, when in fact it does no such thing. Joe Scarborough, on his MSNBC program Scarborough Country, asserted that the Medical Examiner said that Terri had "no brain activity". Tampa Tribune columnist Daniel Ruth, in a screed directed mainly at talk-show host Glenn Beck, claimed that the autopsy "confirmed" that Terri was in a PVS. Even more egregiously, he put words in Dr. Nelson's mouth, writing that the doctor stated that Terri had "no cognitive capability, " when he had neither said nor written any such thing.

It seems to me, barring the rage-induced excesses of Ruth and his ilk, that the pundits and reporters have made a fundamental logical error. They have interpreted the pathologists' statements that the condition of Terri's brain is "consistent with" PVS as somehow meaning "indicative of" or "supportive of" the PVS diagnosis. And that's not at all what the words mean. To say that something is "consistent" with something else is merely to say that they can co-exist - that one is not contradictory of the other. "Consistent with" is not synonymous with "indicative of" or "probative". To say that the condition of Terri's brain was "consistent with" PVS does not eliminate or exclude other explanations or conclusions.

And there is evidence to support other conclusions. Dr. Morin, elaborating on the lack of correlation between the amount of brain tissue and consciousness, said "No one knows how many neurons are necessary for consciousness." Indeed, patients with surprisingly little brain tissue are sometimes seen to have remarkably high function. Florida neurologist Dr. Mack Jones said "What is seen grossly doesn't always tell the story." He recalled the case of a patient who suffered from severe hydrocephalus: The patient had "a rim of cerebral cortex" only a few millimeters thick. "And yet", he said, "the young woman by all appearances functioned normally. If her brain were examined at autopsy without a clinical history, one would assume that this individual couldn't have had much useful function at all."

Now, clearly Terri was not going to regain anything like "normal" function. But the above case indicates how little we really know about what goes on in the brain, and how little we can conclude regarding the "awareness" of Terri, or any brain-injured patient. In short, the autopsy "proved" very little regarding Terri's level of consciousness or awareness. The pathologists made sober, reasonable judgments. But those reasonable and sober judgments were lost, apparently, on the opinion-arbiters of the MSM. The distortions and outright misrepresentations continue apace.

It may be just my cynicism again, but perhaps it was too much to expect otherwise.

Cross-posted at Blogs For Terri

Who Has Something To Say?

In a comment over at The Curt Jester, someone opined:

"Everybody has something to say, period."

I would concede the literal probability of that statement: I'm pretty sure that most of humanity has "something" to say.

However, I would add that a great many people have nothing to say that's actually worth listening to.

Hat tip to Kathy.

To Be Or Not To Be A Priest

While the bishops are meeting in Chicago, yesterday's Chicago Tribune had this quite detailed, and very well-done, feature on the young men discerning their vocation to the priesthood at St. Joseph College Seminary in Chicago.

I especially appreciated the generally symmpathetic presentation of the seminarians' faith.

More, please!

Looking for Another Great Blog To Read?

Then you'd do well to take a look at Gathering Goat Eggs. Blogmistress Kathy is a hoot - I especially appreciated her no-nonsense advice in "Safe Sex For the Star-Struck".

Perhaps another reason I have a certain fellow-feeling for her is that, like her, I too am a genius:

Your IQ Is 140

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Genius

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Great minds think alike!

Terri Schiavo's Autopsy Results To Be Released:

Will Report Make "Outlandish" Claims?


The long-awaited autopsy report of Terri Schiavo will be released later today, according to reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere.

Pinellas County Medical Examiner Jon R. Thogmartin will hold a press conference on the autopsy report at 11:00 AM Wednesday.

What the report will conclude is not yet known, but the Schindler family and many supporters of Terri's right to live hope the autopsy will provide clues regarding the cause of the cardiac arrest which led to her anoxic brain injury in 1990. They also hope that the autopsy will provide evidence of the abuse of which they have accused Michael Schiavo.

I am not terribly optimistic that the autopsy will provide evidence of either the cause of Terri's cardiac arrest or any abuse. I think there was simply too much time between Terri's injury(ies) and her death for any such evidence to still be detectable.

What I am most interested to see is whether or not, as Michael Schiavo and his attorney George Felos hope, the M.E. purports to draw any conclusions regarding whether Terri was in a PVS (Persistent Vegetative State).

As many readers will recall, when George Felos announced that Michael would "permit" an autopsy (the matter was later shown to be completely out of his hands), he said that Michael wanted "definitive proof showing the extent of her brain damage".

Of course, as I pointed out back then, an autopsy cannot possibly "prove" whether Terri was PVS or not. Indeed, Dr. Bernardine Healy, a former Director of the National Institutes of Health and medical columnist for U.S. News & World Report, responded to Felos' announcement, in an appearance on MSNBC, by pointing out that an autopsy can tell us nothing about Terri's neurological function. She lamented the surreal reasoning by which Michael would permit an autopsy when Terri was dead, but refused the medical tests that could assess Terri's brain function while she was still alive.

The inability of an autopsy to retrospectively diagnose PVS did not stop some "talking heads" on cable news shows from offering ill-informed speculation. One pathologist, appearing on Greta Van Sustern's "On The Record" (partial transcript), said that though a determination that Terri was PVS could not be made with 100% certainty, nonetheless an autopsy could confirm the extent of Terri's brain damage - her "loss of neurons" - and whether she was in fact in a PVS.

Neurologists react to statements such as the above with incredulity. Dr. Mack Jones, a Florida neurologist I interviewed for my National Review Online article "Starving For a Fair Diagnosis", characterized such claims as among "the most outlandish statement[s] that I have ever heard". He continued, saying:

Autopsy findings cannot diagnose PVS. I expect evidence of severe brain damage consistent with hypoxic - ischemic injury to the cerebrum with subsequent atrophy. These findings nor any other findings have no bearing on the diagnosis of "minimal consciousness" or PVS.

In a March 31 article at MedPage Today, Dr. Michael De Georgia, head of the neurology/neurosurgery intensive care unit at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, said that the PVS diagnosis "cannot be confirmed by autopsy." Dr. Mouhammed Kabbani, a neurologist at the University of Missouri, concurred with this evaluation, and added that an "autopsy can show the degree of brain damage and how much brain tissue survived the injury", but that "it cannot by any means tell about the patient's clinical status."

In the MedPage Today article, Harvard neuropathologist E. Tessa Hedley Whyte said that "the [pathologic examination of the] brain can't tell if there is a persistent vegetative state or not". But, unfortunately, that won't necessarily prevent excessive claims from being made. Dr. K.J. Oommen, Vice Director of Clinical Neuroscience at the Oklahoma University Medical Center, summed up the problem best, saying that "a pathologist can make such statements, because you cannot disprove them. The patient is already dead!"

While I don't know what the autopsy report will say, I'm going to go out on a limb here: I predict that the autopsy report will, in at least a tentative way, offer a conclusion that Terri was in a PVS. I say this for three reasons: Firstly (and perhaps this is just my cynicism coming out), it would fit the generally unfortunate and dishonest way that the rest of the Terri Schiavo saga has played out. Secondly, doctors with whom I have discussed the Schiavo case share my pessimistic outlook. Dr. Peter Morin, a Boston neurologist interviewed for my March 16 NRO article, said that he anticipated "gross overstatements regarding the implications of the neuropathology." Thirdly, this Philadelphia Inquirer article provides a hint of what is to come:

William A. Pellan, director of forensic investigations for the District Six Medical Examiner's Office in Largo, said the report would address whether Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state.

There would be no point in mentioning the intent to "address" the issue of PVS if the report was not going to draw a conclusion on the matter. Furthermore, the autopsy cannot prove that Terri was not PVS. Thus it seems likely to me that the report will in some way be presented as "confirming" the diagnosis.

Such a conclusion would be in keeping with the way that various "memes" have governed the debate surrounding Terri Schiavo's fate. I discussed some of these memes in my article "The Death of Terri Schiavo", which appeared in the May 2005 issue (available online soon) of Catholic World Report. These memes, such as "9 (or 12 or 16) judges have all reviewed the case and found for Michael", and "all the doctors who examined Terri diagnosed her as PVS", were readily regurgitated by most of the MSM, as part of what Nat Hentoff described as the "disgracefully ignorant" coverage of Terri's case. If, as I predict, the Medical Examiner's report offers anything approaching a "conclusion" that Terri was PVS, then George Felos, the "right-to-die" advocates, and their accomplices in the media elite will have the final meme, with which they can tie up the Terri Schiavo case in a nice, neat bow. The Culture of Death will advance a little further, abetted by self-assured and willing acolytes.

Cross-posted at Blogs For Terri