Bishop Robert F. Vasa speaks out on Terri's behalf ...
In
the Matter of Terri Schiavo:
Most Reverend Robert F. Vasa, Diocese of Baker, Oregon
For Mary and Bob
Schindler: ...."Cannot people see that Terri is their baby and
that their love for her has a value and that their love tells the world that
Terri has great worth? To treat her as if she were already dead is cruel and
inhumane. To treat her as if she is dying is likewise
ludicrous." Kindest Regards, +RFV
The Catholic Church teaches that hydration and nutrition are simply water
and food. These must always be provided as long as the food or water
itself or the method of delivery is not unduly burdensome to the PATIENT.
There does not appear to be any indication from Terri that the provision or the
method of provision of food and water is burdensome to her.
The one 'burden', which so many seem so determined to lift
from her, is that one thing that allows Terri to continue to be a living
breathing human person, life itself. Life itself cannot be the burden from
which we in the Catholic Church seek to deliver the faithful. This is the
Assisted Suicide attitude.
Life is a grace and a blessing and yes the living of that
life does entail some burdens, sometimes great burdens, but the solution can be
neither murder nor suicide - these are offenses against life itself and the Lord
who gives it.
Terri is alive. She is kept alive by the same things that keep me alive - Food, water, air. Her disability deprives her of the ability to ingest these things, it does not deprive her of the ability to digest them. She may well die in the future from an inability to digest food but it would be murder to cause her death by denying her the food she still has the ability to digest and which continues to provide for her a definite benefit - life itself.
Kindest regards,
Bishop Robert F. Vasa
Diocese of Baker
Baker,