Terri
Schiavo's Passion Begins
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Each of us
is called to walk our own Via Dolorosas every day of our lives. Every
day is simile for the creation of the world by God and the re-creation
of mankind on the wood of the Holy Cross by the Sacrifice offered by
the Son to the Father in Spirit and in Truth. We are called to carry
the crosses, both great and small, of everyday living by remembering
that the graces won for us by the shedding of the God-Man's Most Precious
Blood are sufficient for us to climb up to the Mount Calvaries we encounter,
remembering that Our Lady, whose Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart suffered
in a perfect communion with the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, is standing
by us at our own Calvaries just as she was on Good Friday--and just
as she is present mystically at every unbloody re-presentation of the
Sacrifice of Calvary in Holy Mass. No one suffers beyond his or her
strength to endure the suffering. No person suffers alone. The entire
Mystical Body of Christ suffers when one of His least brethren walks
the Via Dolorosa to a fearsome encounter with the forces of evil and
injustice.
Such is the
case at present with Mrs. Terri Schindler-Schiavo. The tubes which have
provided her with food and water have been removed for the third time
in four years. Efforts, some of them flawed (and all of them well-intentioned),
were made to save her life right up to the hour appointed on February
25, 2005, by Florida Judge George Greer for her faithless husband, Michael,
to commence the process of starving and dehydrating her to death under
the cover of a unjust and immoral law on the statute books in the State
of Florida. The process of starving and dehydrating this victim-soul
to death began about six hours ago as of this writing. Terri Schindler-Schiavo's
passion has begun, coinciding on the day in the Traditional liturgical
calendar of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church that is the Feast
of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady.
Terri Schindler-Schiavo
is not suffering alone as she endures the Calvary that has been imposed
upon by wicked men who are intent upon playing God with her life. Hundreds
of people will be keeping vigil outside of Woodspice Hospice as she
endures her passion and eventual death (barring any miracle that will
once again save her life. Millions more around the world are keeping
vigil in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and staying close to Our
Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, especially by means of her Most
Holy Rosary. Priests around the world are offering their Masses for
her intentions. Terri Schindler-Schiavo is not alone during this hour
of her fearful passion. Our Lady, who is present with each one of us
in the bearing of our own daily crosses as she was at the foot of the
Cross of her Divine Son, is standing by the bedside of a woman who has
come to signify once again all that is wrong with the modern State and
with the ethos of Modernism within the Church.
The tragic
plight of Terri Schindler-Schiavo has attracted worldwide attention
because she has had family members who love her and wanted to give her
the care that is her due as a living human being. Thousands more, however,
are being killed each and every day in this country and around the world
because no one in their families objects to their being starved and
dehydrated to death. These anonymous victims are out of the headlines.
Scores of them are killed in Catholic hospitals. No one speaks out for
them. Terri Schindler-Schiavo's plight might help to bring attention
to the fact that human beings, who are at risk in the tabernacles of
their mothers' wombs, are at risk in institutions that were once noted
for mercy and compassion, hospitals and other "health-care"
facilities.
A lot of people
have written about the injustices visited upon Terri Schindler-Schiavo
by Judge George Greer. While Greer has indeed shown himself to be a
heartless individual willing to accept the word of a faithless husband
as the sole proof for the termination of a human life, it should come
as no shock to us at all that an American judge could act as he has
acted throughout the course of this tragedy. A constitutional system
that does not recognize the Social Kingship of Christ as it was exercised
by Holy Mother Church in the Middle Ages is bound to degenerate over
the course of time into abject barbarism. A legal system that has given
us pornography, chemical-baby killing, surgical baby-killing, and perversion
of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments as "rights" protected
by our founding documents (each of which is indifferent to the Incarnation
and the Deposit of Faith Our Lord has entrusted to His true Church)
is thoroughly capable of putting incapacitated human beings to death
under the cover of unjust laws.
Yes, George
Greer will answer to God at the moment of his Particular Judgment if
he does not repent before he dies. So will George Felos, the pro-death
attorney who termed last-minute efforts by Congressional Republicans
to save Terri Schiavo's life an act of "thuggery," answer
to God for his promotion of the killing of innocent human beings under
cover of law. Michael Schiavo will answer to God if he does not repent
of his actions, which have included the provision of minimal care to
his estranged wife while he violated his marriage vows and used monies
from a liability settlement to fund his relentless battle to "fulfill"
what he stated were Terri Schindler-Schiavo's "wishes." God
will not be mocked. In truth, though, these men are but bit players
in a much larger drama, one that has been enveloping the fabric of social
life since an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailed ninety-five
theses to a church door in Wittenberg in 1517 and have been expediting
ever since with the birth of the modern nation-state and all of the
ideologies and philosophies of Modernity that are the sterile substitutes
for the true Faith, Catholicism.
The power
to check the monsters of Modernity and to convert them to the true Faith
is held by the Holy Father and his brother bishops, the Successors of
the Apostles. While Renato Cardinal Martino, the President of the Pontifical
Council for Justice and Peace, issued a clear and unqualified plea for
Mrs. Schiavo's life on two separate occasions, the voice of the Vicar
of Christ has thus far remained mute. Yes, Pope John Paul II has been
in the hospital himself. Statements, though, are issued in his name
practically every day. As has been noted in the past few weeks, it is
likely the case that the Holy Father would have raised his voice in
Mrs. Schiavo's behalf if she had been awaiting execution by the State
of Florida following her conviction of a heinous crime. With one of
his own bishops, the Most Reverend Robert N. Lynch, speaking in terms
that reaffirmed Michael Schiavo's "right" to make the "decision"
about the "health-care" provided to Terri Schiavo, the Holy
Father's voice has remained silent. Bishop Robert Lynch's misrepresentation
of Catholic teaching has been allowed to stand. The 1989 Florida bishops'
pastoral letter that justified the removal of food and water in some
circumstances, including those involving financial and psychological
"burdens" to family members, goes unchallenged thus far by
the Vicar of Christ. While it is certainly the case that the forces
of Modernity would have been attempting to advance their diabolical
schemes regardless of the state of the Church, the Church herself has
been infected in her human elements with the novelties and errors of
Modernity in the form of Modernism, resulting in her lessened ability
to confront the evils of Modernity with the vigor and the clarity of
Tradition.
Bishop Robert N. Lynch,
if he had the heart and the soul of a Roman Catholic, would have been
pleading ceaselessly and publicly with Michael Schiavo to turn guardianship
of Terri Schindler-Schiavo over to her loving parents, Robert and Mary
Schindler. Bishop Robert N. Lynch, if he had the heart and the soul
and the mind of a Roman Catholic, would have been lobbying the Florida
State Legislature with all of the other bishops of Florida for the immediate
repeal of the Florida statute that authorizes the withdrawal of food
and water under any circumstances. Bishop Robert N. Lynch, if he had
the heart and soul of a Roman Catholic, would be present in front of
Woodspice Hospice at this very moment, having brought the Blessed Sacrament
exposed solemnly in a monstrance to its very doorstep with thousands
upon thousands of ordinary Catholics to pray for a miracle to save Terri
Schindler-Schiavo's life. The fact that Bishop Lynch has done none of
these things while actually supporting the withdrawal and food and water
in some instances is merely indicative of the reality that he should
never have been appointed to any position of authority within the Church,
least of all as a diocesan ordinary. Pope John Paul II bears direct
responsibility for appointing Monsignor Robert N. Lynch, a hard-core
Vatican II revolutionary when serving as a functionary in the then named
National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference,
as a diocesan ordinary and for not removing him for his consistent misrepresentations
of Catholic teaching that have now resulted, at least in part if not
in large measure, for the passion that Terri Schindler-Schiavo is experiencing
at this very hour.
We know that the Church
is divinely founded and maintained. She will last until the end of time.
The jaws of Hell will never prevail against her. This does not mean
that the devil is not going to win a few battles in our own lives and
in the larger life of the Church in her human elements. Pope Pius XI
wrote about this in Quas Primas in 1925:
We
may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God,
who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered
the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth
to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth
has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men's faith,
aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before.
The ultimate
remedy for the errors of Modernity in the world, which are really the
errors of Russia spoken about by Our Lady in Fatima, and Modernism in
the Church is for some pope to actually consecrate Russia with all of
the other bishops of the world to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate
Heart. An period of peace will result. The assaults on the innocent
unborn and on the helpless innocents such as Terri Schindler-Schiavo
do not signify any period of peace that is consonant with the Triumph
of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. As mere sheep in Christ's
true Sheepfold that is the Catholic Church we must do what we can by
our lives of prayer, penance and sacrifice to offer up everything we
do and all of the evil we endure as consecrated slaves to Our Lady's
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Just as our sins are in large part responsible
for the wounds being experienced by the Church Militant at present,
so is it the case that the merits of whatever good works we are able
to perform by means of God's grace and offered freely to Him through
the Immaculate Heart will help to rebuild the Church Militant, helping
to spade the ground, so to speak, for the restoration of Tradition in
the Church and thus of Christendom in the world as the fruit of the
Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
While we must
be aware of the reality of our ecclesiastical and civil situations,
we must never become discouraged. The supernatural virtues of Faith,
Hope, and Charity must burn brightly in our souls. We must keep Our
Lady and all of the angels and the saints company as they stand present
in each Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We must be tireless in our efforts
to plant the seeds for what seems in human terms to be an impossibility:
the conversion of everyone in the world to the true Church.
I wrote to
an advocate for Terri Schindler-Schiavo to remind her that Our Lady
was pleading for Terri's life. Our Lady is indeed pleading for Terri's
life. Far more important than the physical life of the body, however,
is the life of the soul. Our Lady will be sure to keep Terri's immortal
soul quite safe as Terri suffers as one of the showcase victims of the
overthrow of Our Lady's Divine Son's Social Kingship. And along with
Our Lady, Terri Schindler-Schiavo will be pleading for the conversion
of all those who are responsible, either directly or indirectly, for
her cruel and unjust death. Saint Stephen prayed for the conversion
of Saul. Saint Maria Goretti prayed for the conversion of her murderer,
who lived to be present at her canonization by Pope Pius XII. Terri
Schindler-Schiavo's soul, kept safe by the Mother of God, will be praying
for the conversion of her faithless husband, of George Felos, of George
Greer, and of Bishop Robert Lynch to the fullness of the true Faith
without compromise and without any taint of the errors of the novelties
of the recent past.
Oh, yes, we
continue to pray for a miracle to save Terri Schindler-Schiavo's physical
life. Her prayers from eternity will be, if this is indeed her final
agony in this mortal vale of tears, powerful with Our Lady's Immaculate
Heart and thus to the very throne of God Himself. We must remain ceaseless
in prayer, hoping that Terri Schindler-Schiavo's death, if it occurs
at this time, will help to alert Catholics around the world that they
must work for the conversion of whole world to Christ the King through
Mary our Immaculate Queen.
Our Lady,
Mother of Sorrows and Comforter of the Afflicted, pray for Terri Schilder-Schiavo
and her parents and siblings.
Saint Joseph,
Patron of the dying, pray for Terri Schindler-Schiavo at this hour in
which her mortal life is in jeopardy.
Saint George,
pray for the conversion of George Felos and George Greer.
Saint Michael,
pray for the conversion of Michael Schiavo.
Saint Robert Bellarmine,
pray for the conversion of Bishop Robert Lynch and all of the bishops
of the Catholic Church to the glories of Tradition, which were the sure
bulwark against the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil during
Christendom and will be the only antidote to the poisons of Modernity
in the world and Modernism in the Church.
The
Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel (Latin and English)
Sancte Michael
Archangele, defende nos in praelio. Contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli
esto praesidium. Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur. Tuque princeps
militiae caelestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem
animarum pervagantur in mundo divina virtute in infernum detrude.
Cor Jesu Sacratissimum,
miserere nobis.
Cor Jesu Sacratissimum,
miserere nobis.
Cor Jesu Sacratissimum,
miserere nobis.
St. Michael
the Archangel, defend us in battle; Be our protection against the wickedness
and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do
thou O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell,
Satan and all the other evil spirits, who prowl through the world, seeking
the ruin of souls. Amen
Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
