Allowed to Die...Gradually

A friend and I were discussing the issue of the Quietus Clinic today and wondering why they are bothering with this whole "gradually" removing her food and water business.

What are they afraid of? Don't they think that what they are doing is right?

If she's unconscious, why not just pull the tube?

In fact, as my friend said, why not just put a pillow over her face? A pillow would take about five minutes or less, be inexpensive and would enable the corpse to be used as an organ donor source. Dehydrated kidneys are no good to anyone.

And what the heck is with this?

Inspectors on Monday visited an Italian clinic that has stopped feeding a comatose woman to check whether it is qualified to allow her to die in line with a court ruling.

What do you really need for a place to be "qualified" to dehydrate someone to death? Were they checking to see if there are bars on the windows?

Peace n' Luv

Roma: Conferita Cittadinanza Onoraria a Dalai Lama

Well well,


I hope that our friends at Arcigay won't fail to go and protest.

A nice gentle death by dehydration:

Wesley Smith comments on media bias and euthanasia:

A clinic in Udine on Thursday said it may be ready to help a woman trapped in a vegetative state for 17 years end her life

Media just can't use accurate language on these issues, it seems. Eluana isn't trying to end her own life. If she is PVS, she is unaware of what is happening. Moreover, before the media call dehydration a "dignified death," they should talk to Terri Schiavo's brother Bobby Schindler--who, as his sister's death was imminent, told the world that Terri's tissues had become so dry blood was pooling in her eyes.

Random Rome

People waiting in government offices look the same in every part of the world.

This was where we waited to be seen by the nice lady who gave me my "codice fiscale". (Don't ask me, but you need one to get a bank account in Italy.) It was just under an hour, but it was OK because I brought along a friend to chat with and Pride and Prejudice to read.


Workworkwork.


In the office last week, we entertained Rabbi Yehuda Levin who stopped in Rome for a day on his way to Israel. Rabbi Levin has long been a favourite of mine and of my little pro-life activist friends, for his good humour and all-around good-eggishness. It is always a pleasure to see him and he always remembers the last time he spoke with you, even if it was years and years. He recalled with perfect clarity a conversation we had at least seven years ago when I had the pleasure of escorting him to his limo at a conference where he had been a featured speaker. He asked me then why I wasn't married. Taken somewhat aback, I replied that I didn't really know, but that no one suitable had made the offer. He responded, with all seriousness, "Call me. I know every nice Catholic boy in New York." He probably does too.


My kind of office and a very congenial place to work.


So, how's February where you are? It's spring here and this is the laburnum (or something quite like a laburnum) tree that is in full bloom in the garden next door to JP Sonnen and Chris Wells' place. There are daffodils all over the place and the little geckos and lizards that live in the clover are coming out into the sun to warm up. They have the most amusing way of running and when I startled one on the train platform the other day, I laughed out loud when it ran for cover. They're very fast though and I despair of ever catching one.


Took these pics this morning. Spring.




A balcony, a little puff, a cup of tea and a copy of Maritain stuffed in one's pocket. The good life of a Roman theology student.


What does it say? It says the same thing all pro-life posters say, "You can't kill people to solve your problems". Or theirs, in the case of euthanasia.

"Eluana, do not be afraid, Rome does not desert you".

We are waiting to find out what will happen to Eluana.

If you can spare a prayer for her and for Italy, we'd appreciate it.

Can we sack him now?

The Vatican does not have control over its own communications and should improve the way it presents controversial statements, spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi told a French Catholic newspaper on Thursday.

Now?

ok,

...

Lombardi said the Vatican officials who dealt with the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), the breakaway group the four bishops lead, focused on the views of the group's leader Bishop Bernard Fellay and not those of Williamson or the others.

"They didn't take the views of the other bishops enough into account," he said. "One thing that's certain is that the pope didn't know. If someone should have known, it was Cardinal (Dario) Castrillon Hoyos."

Castrillon Hoyos heads the Vatican department that deals with traditionalist Catholics.

how about now?

A suggestion for Pope Benedict

to help him with his current staff problems.

But it's all about tolerance,

right?

A couple has been refused permission by a council to adopt their own grandchildren and the kids are being given to a homosexual "couple" for permanent adoption. Because they objected, they have been told that they will never see their grandchildren again.

Last week the grandparents were told they would never see their grandchildren again because they had made public the fact that the children were taken from them and to be adopted by two homosexual men.

A nurse has been suspended because she offered to pray for the recovery of a patient.

Mrs Petrie, a committed Christian since she was aged ten when her mother died of breast cancer, routinely offers to pray for her patients' speedy recovery. Many of them find it a great comfort.

In this case, 79-year-old May Phippen said: thanks, but no thanks. No offence given or taken. But when Mrs Phippen mentioned it to another nurse, all hell broke loose.

Hey, at least no one has been killed...

yet.

Nonetheless, this falsely inflated media circus is not even the most important of this Pontificate! Or has it been forgotten that oversimplified or distorted reports of the Regensburg address caused actual deaths in areas with Muslim populations? And have the international news agencies apologized for that?

Anyone remember Regensburg?

BBC, NY Times and Guardian Appear to Have Stage-Managed Muslim Anti-Pope Hatred

OK kids, I'm going to tell you, using small words, what this is about.

The Catholic Church has been lying down and licking the boots of the poofs, the abortionists and secularists for the last forty years. We've gone from being the scourge of heretics and terror of Islams to the Lehmann/Daneels circus sideshow who have no more care for the great churches and cathedrals of Europe than to let them be used as mosques, toilets and venues for pornography.

At the same time, almost no one is in the pews on Sundays.

Now that there is a very large likelihood that upwards of two or three million real Catholics are suddenly going to be filling those pews with themselves and their enormous tribes of well-catechised and well-behaved children, the enemies of the Church know that they have lost the war.

The bishops who spoke below, know that they are about to be replaced, that their decrepit day-glo-flower dreams of taking over the Church and running it as a hippie commune, as robust forty years later as the music of Peter Paul and Mary, are crumbling. And the men who are going to replace them are going to have to be...shall we say, rather different sort of men.


The party, in other words, is over.

“absolutely indefensible”

Good by, so long, auf wiedersehen, good ni-ight!

Theologian Hermann Haering went so far as to say that the Pope should resign: “If the Pope wants to do something good for the church, he should step down.”

But Hamburg bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke told BILD: “A mistake was made and it was in his name. He was probably badly advised. There is now a need for damage limitation, the rehabilitation process should be stopped. People want to hear clear words. If he had known what the unenlightened Williamson had said, he would not have undone the excommunication. The matter was badly dealt with.”

The Pope's recent decree aimed to “undo the scandal of divisiveness” with the reinstatement of British bishop Williamson (68) into the Catholic Church, as well as three other bishops who had been excommunicated by Benedict XVI’s predecessor John Paul II.

But Vatican spokesman, Reverend Federico Lombardi, told AP that the Pope’s “absolutely indefensible” decision to reinstate Williamson did not reflect the Vatican’s views: “They are his personal ideas ... that we certainly don't share”

So long Lombardi.

Not been very nice knowing you, I'm afraid.

But of course, ANSA is completely free of bias in the matter

Her father has fought for more than a decade for a dignified end to his daughter's life and had great difficulties finding a clinic ready to do this despite a November supreme court ruling which was in his favor but which split Catholics and libertarians in the country.

Strictly the facts, right boys?