Advertise in this spot on CatholicCulture.org. View all ads.

Catholic World News News Feature

Vatican newspaper decries court decision in Schiavo case March 22, 2005

The official Vatican newspaper has denounced an American court decision to withdraw food and water from Terri Schiavo.

L'Osservatore Romano , in a signed article by Francesco Valiante, remarked that the case of the brain-damaged Florida woman has been complicated by political and legal stratagems. But the fundamental truth remains, the newspaper noted, that "a woman is dying of hunger and thirst." Terri Schiavo, the article continues, is being denied not merely medical treatment, but "the palliative care which, for reasons of elementary humanity, should not even be refused to the most object and rejected creature."

The L'Osservatore analysis decried the "eugenic mentality" of those who presume to judge when a human life is not worth living. It denounced "her husband, who once promised to love and honor her, in sickness and in health." And it concluded that the "slow, grinding agony" of Terri Schiavo's death could be a sign of "the agony of humanity."