Canon lawyer Ed. Peter’s discuses the canonical issues regarding the Schiavo-Centonze marriage. I am sure many when they heard of this story that he got married in a Catholic church wondered what the ****? Well it looks like that is a valid response. Though considering that this is Bishop Lynch’s diocese this is to be expected.
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Don’t just sit there pray.
Update: Jimmy Akin has additional information and some contact information to protest this scandalous situation.
21 comments
This is disgusting. It’s creeps like him (and whomever allowed this) that give all Catholics a bad name.
Lord have mercy.
The law of the land prevails, as it should, as well as our theology of the sacrament of marriage. The two become one, when one ceases to be able to communicate his or her wishes, the other is the voice of that spouse. And he said that she wished to no longer receive useless treatment. Sounds goofy, but it is our theology and each of us has the right under current Church tradition to refuse treatment we deem too burdensome or toward an end that has no hope of working. This is all very touchy and controversial, but I am worried about the legal system trumping our theology of marriage, which it will when it comes to same-sex unions and marriage. The legal intervention on this event was sad and avoidable…but that is just my opinion.
Andy O.P.
It never surprises me.
It’s a pastoral version of the military code ” Don’t ask, don’t tell”.
I won’t ask about Pre Cana.
I won’t ask about any impediments.
Please don’t ask me if I support Catholic doctrine.
Ouch…pains me to see “pisses me off” near a pic of Mother T.
Still, I agree that the whole story about this guys marriage belongs in the toilet.
I’m not sure I follow you Andy O.P.–somehow I don’t think the Church’s teaching on ‘treatment that is too burdensome or toward an end that has no hope of working’ doesn’t extend to basic food and water.
And somehow I find it a little too ironic that the result of ‘two flesh becoming one’ works out in this scenario by Micheal’s flesh staying alive while he says his wife would want hers starved to death.
Andy O.P. and BV-
It’s also pretty evident that Michael Schiavo didn’t care too much about that whole sacrament of marriage thing when he lived with his new “wife” before there was any evidence that Terri’s condition was permanent.
BV – the current teaching would agree with you for sure, but it is still an open question (to some degree) due to the nature of medical ethics.
Layla – it doesn’t matter what we thik of Michael S. in that he may have gone to confession and we must trust that the Church he was married in confronted all the issues. God will be his judge, not me and I won’t bad mouth and judge him before God does… that is the Gospel.
This story is proof that there is a hell, and people go there.
Also, Jimmy Akin (go to his site for the specifics) is claiming an additional impediment, in that Schiavo new “wife” is divorced without an annulment.
But you know, we’re just the digital Torquemadas, right? The Grand Inquisitors of the Peanut Gallery, according to some other Catholic bloggers.
Time to wake up, folks.
this gives me a headache…
As a practical matter, I think the marriage is likely to be over before the canonical aspects of the case are sorted out. Either that, or the new Mrs. S will find that her husband has taken out a large life insurance policy on her, and she’ll have a fall in the house that will break several major bones and inexplicably leave grip bruises and fracture the esophageal cartilage. In any case, loads of people don’t know that killing a former spouse is an impediment to marriage, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the priest or deacon who conducted the attempted marriage service didn’t know that, either. Or he may have ignored it: nothing gives dissidents such a frisson as thinking that they’ve done an end run round The System.
It’s actually a covered topic on any worthwhile Canon Law class and Marriage class, at least in my experience.
In any case it is nice to see that forgiveness and charity are not essential aspects of the Christian life in the wolrd of blogging.
It isn’t our business to forgive Michael Schiavo, because he didn’t injure us. He injured his wife, remember? Then he starved her to death. You can’t have been paying attention if you’ve forgotten that.
I thought forgiveness followed repentance. As for charity one must hold to the truth. It is not charity to pretend that a great wrong was not done when if fact it was. This was a public scandal and did great harm on an individual and community level.
Point taken by all. But why on earth can there not be clear and thoughtful discussion about the issues at hand without condemning this man to hell. Charity is wanting what is best for the other person and in our world that is eternal salvation through belief in Jesus Christ. I do not know his heart or the state of his heart when he made these decisions. To say he is pure evil is a cheap way out of the arguments. If you harbor ill will for him, you need to forgive him, not the other way around; he doesn’t know you.
And just to add to the discussion, does anybody actually know what the results of the autopsy were? And if you do could you please let us know what they were so we can have a clearer understanding of the actual state of Terri at the time of her death?
John the Mad – your theology is in questionable. Jesus said from the Cross, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” There is no evidence that anyone other than the Centurion repented, and that was after his death.
Charity is never an option based on the situation. Charity is pointing out a grave error for sure, but not in already condemning someone to hell. That is in the realm of eternal judgement, which is not for us to decide.
Autopsy info can be found here:
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/002756.htm
But it is noy really germane to the subject. In only very rare cases can artificial hydration become burdensome and not proportional. In Terri’s case this was simply not the case.
As is very clear by the late Pope’s address on the subject.
“The sick person in a ‘vegetative state’, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of eventual recovery”. (Pope John Paul II, March 20, 2004)
Withdrawing food and water is no different than withdrawing air for the most part. In Terri’s circumstance there was zero justification to remove her feeding tube.
For a good overview on this subject and when it might be necessary to remove a feeding tube see.
http://www.jimmyakin.org/2005/03/food_tube_ethic.html
I’m not condemning anyone to Hell. I’m pointing out that the man was the husband, and only other person known to have been on the premises, of a woman who was brought into the hospital in 1990 with cervical (neck) spinal cord injuries, grip bruises, several broken bones including the femur (thighbone), for Heaven’s sake, which is pretty much the heaviest, strongest bone in the body and very difficult to break. He also caused her to be deprived of rehabilitative treatment and eventually of food and water. These aren’t judgments or emotional outbursts. These are facts.
In as much as I may agree with many of the objections raised (i.e., I think in my heart he is a murderer), do they not remain conjecture until this man faces Judgment?
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