Humanity takes another hit at its own hand

Terri Schiavo has begun her slow death by starvation. Meanwhile, the culture of death smirks with joy as its sizes up its next target.

I was very happy to see the Vatican chime in about this travesty.

Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the academy usually does not comment on specific cases before courts, but "silence in this case could be interpreted as approval."

The bishop told Vatican Radio March 11 that withdrawing Schiavo's gastric tube would not be a matter of allowing her to die, but would "inflict death." ...

Bishop Sgreccia said he also was concerned about the precedent the court's decision could set in the United States, creating a situation in which euthanasia is seen "as a right."

"For these reasons we consider illicit the decision to remove Mrs. Terri Schiavo's gastric feeding tube," he said.

Bishop Sgreccia told Vatican Radio that the Catholic Church does not support keeping people alive at all costs, going to extraordinary and even painful means to postpone death.

However, he said, keeping a patient clean, warm, fed and hydrated is not the same thing as "therapeutic obstinacy" or the refusal to accept death.