Open Letter to Gov. DeSantis on Terri Schiavo: Only you on this 20th anniversary of her eugenic execution, can speak out against what your state did to her. Will you demand an investigation?
Cardinal Burke to celebrate Mass for Terri Schiavo to commemorate 20th anniversary of her death
On Saturday, March 22, Cardinal Raymond Burke will celebrate a Holy Mass in remembrance of Terri Schiavo, whose tragic death sparked nationwide debate on the rights of patients to receive basic care.
[https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-burke-confusion-and-error-increasingly-enslave-the-church-and-society/]
Governor DeSantis, March 31, 2025, marks the twentieth anniversary of the imposed death by starvation and dehydration of an innocent and disabled woman, Terri Schindler Schiavo. The State of Florida ultimately forced medical professionals, willing or otherwise, to take her life for eugenic and economic reasons, due to a ruling in favor of her predatory and self-seeking husband and against her caring family members who stood ready to assume all responsibility for her continued care, financial and otherwise. The governor at the time, Jeb Bush, washed his hands of the matter, as did his brother in the White House, "George W."
In the meanwhile a divided world was also looking on while the Pope, John Paul II, fought valiantly for his life--valiantly but in vain, since he died days after Terri, whose passing took place on Easter Sunday of that year. Together they gave witness to the reality that suffering united to the Cross of Christ is of inestimable value, and that every human life made in the image and likeness of God, regardless of present condition, is worth infinitely more than the entirety of "our common home" itself.
Two decades later, as Catholics and as Americans of good will, we are wondering what would have happened if someone like you had been Florida's Governor at the time, under a President more like Donald J. Trump. We are wondering if anyone has noticed that, right now, the world is again watching as a Pope struggles to survive--a Pope who is put on mechanical ventilation if necessary, even though the Church does not morally mandate the use of "extraordinary means" when the end of life may be near. We are wondering why no one is demanding to be told--as was asked in Terri's case, and answered by the State of Florida in the negative--whether Jorge Bergoglio's life is worth the effort and expense involved in salvaging it. And not only Terri, either, but also the countless helpless individuals who are even now being denied even the ordinary care which their vaunted dignity would seem to require--individuals including young Alfie Evans, on whose behalf Pope Francis personally and explicitly declined to intervene.
Would you, Governor DeSantis, as a Catholic in public life, have called upon Terri's local ordinary not to leave the state and go mysteriously silent, ordering his diocesan priests not to protest on behalf of her protection? In fact, the one priest who was permitted to be there for her and for the whole Schindler family--Frank Pavone--has been, under Pope Francis, defrocked.
Would you, in Terri's case, have championed American founding principles to the extent that they align with Divine and natural law, as we saw you do during the medical abuses of the COVID-10 crisis? Or would you, too, have acquiesced to the division of humanity into "worthy" and "unworthy" halves, ideologically extending the barbed wire of the Second World War across your state, our nation, and the globe itself?
No one, Governor or otherwise, can bring Terri back. Only you, however, on this twentieth anniversary of her eugenic execution, can speak out publicly and effectively against what your state did to her. Will you, even now, demand an investigation into how she became physically impaired in the first place, resolving the many open questions raised by Mark Fuhrman at the time? Will you proclaim a day of remembrance in Terri's honor, to be observed by the State of Florida for as long as it shall endure? Will you invite your fellow Catholic in public life--Vice President J. D. Vance--to join you especially in bringing to this travesty the justice you still may? "The light shines on in the darkness--a darkness that did not overcome it" (Jn. 1:0).
Note: This post is written by a Catholic Monitor contributor.
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