Brava Suore Italiane!

Recently the Italiano courts made a horrible ruling that would allow the same thing that happenned to Terri Schiavo to be done to be done to Eluana Englaro. (right) In other words, they gave the OK for her to be murdered by starving her to death.

The ruling was made at the request of her father, Beppino Englaro. He has been trying to get the court's OK since 1999. Englaro, 37, is not on a ventilator. She has been in a state of diminished consciousness since being in a car accident in 1992 at age 20.

Talking recently about the attempts to starve her, Javier Cardinal Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care said it was “monstrous and inhuman murder.” He went on to say: “To deprive her of water and food means to kill her. It is inhuman.”

“Life is sacred. The right to die does not exist. To stop giving food and drink to Eluana is tantamount to committing murder. It means letting her die of hunger and thirst, condemning her to a monstrous end.”

The president of the Italian Movement for Life (MPV), Carlo Casini said that the decision “puts at risk the thousands of other Eluanas, lovingly cared for by relatives and thousands and thousands of lives of people with severe disabilities who depend on the care of the community.” “Ultimately it endangers all of us when we become marginal and ‘useless.’” He called the decision a “sentence that has as its premise and effect of discriminating between lives more or less worthy of living.”

The Italiano Bishops conference condemned the decision. They called for Parliament to pass a law that would safeguard the “end of life.” L’Associazione Scienza & Vita who opposes the decision, called it a “real death sentence.”

The Misericordine nuns of Lecco run the hospice where she has been cared for over the last 14 years. They have announced that they will ignore the court order & continue to provide her with food & hydration.

In a letter they published in the 16 November 2008 issue of Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, they explained their reasons for their refusal. “Our hope, and that of many like us, is that the death by hunger and thirst of Eluana, and others in her condition, will not be carried out.”

“That is why, once again, we maintain our availability, today and into the future, to continue to serve Eluana. If there are those who consider her dead, let Eluana remain with us who feel she is alive. We don’t ask anything but the silence and the liberty to love and to devote ourselves to those who are weak, poor and little in return.”

At this point, the Itatiano Government seems content to allow the Nuns to continue feeding her. Secretary of Welfare, Eugenia Roccella, issued a statement saying that there is “no obligation” for government-funded health care facilities to implement the decision of the Court of Cassation that patients can be dehydrated to death.

Monsignore Ignacio Barreiro, the head of the Rome office of Human Life International talked about the possibility that the Nuns could be appointed Eluana’s legal guardian, offering her a real glimmer of hope. Msgr. Barriero was an attorney before being ordained to the priesthood. “It’s more than reasonable,” he said, “that someone who wants to keep the person alive should be appointed the guardian, rather than the person who’s ready to kill her. You don’t have to have a doctorate in theology to say that; it’s just common sense.”

Msgr. Barriero added that it is a basic principle of law that “you cannot have a conflict of interest between the guardian and the person who is under guardianship. The purpose of a guardian is to look after the well being of the person.”

The 550 delegates of the Movement for Life who are meeting in Montecatini for the 28th National Congress of the Centers for Aid to Life, have written to President Giorgio Napolitano to ask him to “enforce his highest moral authority” to allow Eluana Englaro “to continue to be cared for and loved by the Sisters of Lecco.”

Giulio Boscagli, Assessor to the Family and Solidarity in the region of Lombardy in which Eluana lives, agreed with the decision of the nuns. He said:“The ruling of the Court of Cassation seems to have lost sight of the reality” that Eluana is not dead but alive, although currently in a “seriously disabled condition.”

He also said that the desire of the nuns to care for Eluana as though she is “a daughter” “is the right path, the path taken by all those who daily take care of people who are in a vegetative state or very seriously disabled.” He pledged the “closeness and support” of the Regione Lombardia for the nuns.

Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo's brother condemned the desision as well. He pointed out the fact that Eluana’s case indicates that the utilitarian bioethical thinking that resulted in his sister’s court-ordered death has taken hold in other countries.

Here we go again. The 1 good thing in this case is that, unlike in Florida, the caretakers are on Eluana's side & the government is working with them to protect her life. Pray that the outcome will be such that Eluana is allowed the dignaty & respect that was denied 3-1/2 years ago to Terri.

Sources: Italian Nuns Refuse to Kill Eluana Englaro

Eluana Englaro to Die by Dehydration after Italian High Court Ruling