Today I was in Eucharistic Adoration with my two kids. No, it was not the most meditative or peaceful time I've ever had in church, and frankly I was grateful that there wasn't anyone else there during my hour as there usually are, since they might have been disturbed by the kids. In any case, I picked up a brochure someone had dropped off on the table near the door. The brochure is entitled, "Terri Schiavo's Final Hours: An Eyewitness Account," by the well known Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests For Life.

I found his account of the ordeal intriguing and disturbing to say the least. Let me share with you a few quotes from the pamphlet:

After I said these things [namely that Michael Schiavo, his attorney Mr. Felos, and Judge Greer were murderers], Mr. Felos and others in sympathy with him began attacking me in the press and before the cameras. Some news outlets began making a story out of their attacks and said I was "fanning the flames" of enmity and hatred.

Hmmm, I thought. Something about this sounds very familiar to me. Someone speaks out with God's honest truth and he is made out as, well, the worst possible thing he could be today: Not Nice! The implication, of course, is that Fr. Pavone is just another wacky fundy Fundamentalist who wishes to impose his inflexible moral rules on others, disrespecting Terri's supposed right to die, thus making him a hateful person. (Basically anyone with moral or religious backbone these days is pegged a "fundamentalist," hate-filled, or just a big meanie.) Fr. Pavone continues:

Actually, there's a simple reason why they are so angry with me. They had hoped that they could present Terri's death as a merciful and gentle act. My words took the veil of euphemism away, calling this a killing, and giving eyewitness testimony to the fact that it was anything but gentle. Mr. Felos is a euthanasia advocate, and like all such advocates, he needs to manipulate the language, to sell death in an attractive package...

Wow, this sounds even more familiar. How many times in the course of human history have politicians and others had to pretty up something so overtly evil, so immoral? Something they know to be just plain wrong? "Gathering God's Gifts," anyone? Are our churches being "euthenized?"

One of the attacks they made was that a "spiritual person" like a priest should be speaking words of compassion and understanding, instead of venom.

Ahhh, the old "be Christian" routine. The "you hypocrite who claims to be a Christian but doesn't act like one" head trip. As if "being Christian" is equivalent with being a spineless nicy nice, simply a person with very good manners. What a load of horse manure.

But compassion demands truth. A priest is also a prophet, and if he cannot cry out against evil, then he cannot bring about reconciliation. If there is going to be any healing...it must start with repentance on the part of those who murdered Terri and now try to cover it up with flowery language.

Part of the Christian life, as taught best to us by the Church's many martyrs for the Faith, is the necessity of calling a spade a spade and defending the Truth. What a shame so many fall prey to evil dressed up as good, wolves in sheep's clothing, and church closure programs portrayed as promotion rather than a demotion of the Faith.

Another aspect of the Terri Schiavo tragedy is that many people misunderstand its cause and therefore its solution. They think the problem was that Terri did not leave any written instructions... Terri's case is not about the withdrawal of life-saving medical treatment, but rather about the killing of a healthy person whose life some regarded as worthless. Terri was not dying, was not on life support, and did not have any terminal illness. Because some thought she would not want to live with her disability, they insisted on introducing the cause of death, namely, dehydration.

At this point the parallels being drawn were simply unbelievable. The Diocese of Camden's Administration has presented a list of supposed problems within the Diocese (although they have presented contradictory statements numerous times)--its symptoms of terminal illness--and expected the veracity of these supposed problems to go unchallenged, the Administration's chosen responses received without question. Even if we the Christian faithful were to accept their diagnoses, then must we accept their solution? Not necessarily. But misunderstanding supposed causes of our problems in the Diocese is half the problem.

In so many cases, churches threatened with closure (death) are not dying, not on life support, and without "terminal illnesses." But their causes of death were about to be handily introduced from on high. Our "Speak Up Sessions," our "living wills" so to speak, were the venues at which so many allegedly clamored to have their churches merged and closed. As Fr. Pavone says, "what good is a living will supposed to accomplish, aside from saying, 'Please don't argue about killing me, just kill me?'"

If we had enough priests to go around when we began (and we did), the bishop would make sure that we had an inadequate number by the time he was through, creating the priest shortage "terminal illness" he so desired. He and McGrath were careful to disallow various orders of priests from offering their services within the Diocese, and, we have been told by inside sources, actively discouraged vocations to the diocesan priesthood through emotional intimidation and screening processes, neither of which are unique to our Diocese. (For more on such screening processes we recommend you read Michael Rose's excellently researched book, Goodbye Good Men.)

In any case, what we're talking about is the killing of healthy churches whose life some in positions of power regard as worthless. They insist on introducing the cause of death. Fr. Pavone continues:

What we run the risk of losing is the right to receive the most basic humane care--like food and water--in the event we have a disability.

Human beings, of course, have a right to life! And according to Canon Law, parishes also have a right to existence as juridic persons. The good ol' Baltimore Catechism (#132) states that "when these buildings we call churches are blessed or consecrated, they become holy." And the Church Herself said in the Council of Trent that all parish churches should be consecrated and they "may never be transferred to common or profane uses." Why then are all of our churches, our juridic persons, suddenly disposable?

It occurred to me that what is currently happening throughout the United States is this. Certain bishops have decided that our churches--which have rights as juridic persons under Canon Law and Church law generally--and by extension we the Catholic faithful who have built and maintained and worshiped in these churches, no longer deserve the dignity God Himself accords us. We no longer have the right to receive the most basic spiritual care--like the Bread of Life and the Blood of Christ--in our own churches. (It is unlikely any great accident that many of the targeted churches are among the most architecturally traditional). Similarly our consecrated parishes are no longer deserving of the most basic dignity by virtue of their holy usage as having the "Gospel preached in them, the Sacraments administered in them, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered in them" (Baltimore Catechism #132).

In a model where human beings are considered bodies without souls, our churches are considered mere brick-and-mortar buildings lacking the animating Spirit of God. Therefore they are being dispensed with as if they had no meaning or importance whatsoever, as if they were "just buildings" (a phrase the Diocesan Administration has used time and again). In our current materialist culture, this sentiment is no great surprise. Fr. Pavone continues:

But we have a basic obligation to preserve our own life. A person who leaves clear instructions that they don't want to be fed is breaking the moral law by requesting suicide.

Every word Fr. Pavone speaks in this pamphlet is so very true, I thought. Certainly every person is deserving of his God given right to both physical and spiritual sustenance. In turn, we have an obligation to preserve and promote the Faith, which is our very Life. This one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Faith is the very essence of our churches and our parish communities, and these churches and communities are being attacked without cause. We must stand for Truth at all costs and never allow ourselves to be deprived of our own basic dignity. To stand idly by and watch our communities, our dignity, our spiritual welfare, our very FAITH be torn to shreds would be to deny it, and therefore to commit spiritual suicide. This is the culture of death.*

So by the time I was done reading this pamphlet, I wondered, is even the Church not immune from the culture of death? It seemed to me that the same heterodox and secular model Fr. Pavone spoke of, the culture of death which is so prevalent in our culture today, is now being applied to our churches and in a general sense, to the Faith as we know it. This time, the model has infested the highest levels of our Diocese.


* The "culture of death" is a phrase coined by the late Pope John Paul II and is described in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae