Archbishop Chaput calls Schiavo’s starvation an "attack on the sanctity of human life"

Catholic News Agency reports:

Denver, Mar. 23, 2005 (CNA) - Yesterday, in the wake of Florida Federal Judge James Whittemore’s decision not to reinsert brain-damaged Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, which has been absent since Friday, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver added his voice to the fight for Schiavo’s life.

He said that, "The bishops and lay faithful of Florida have the task of leading American Catholics in the Terri Schiavo case. They're working hard to provide that leadership. Our job, outside Florida, is to support Ms. Schiavo and all those concerned for her well being with our prayers.”
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"For disabled persons not in imminent danger of death and able to breathe on their own, starvation and dehydration to provoke death amount, in effect, to a form of murder. Such actions attack the sanctity of human life. They reject any redemptive meaning to suffering. They can never be justified."

Yet another voice from the Church hierarchy speaks out with authority to condemn the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo. But who's voice seems to be missing? Why, that of Terri's own Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg. While I admire Archbishop Chaput probably as much or more than any other American bishop, I have to take issue with his claim that the bishops of Florida are working hard to provide leadership on this issue, when any clear statement of authority from Bishop Lynch has been so noticeably absent.

I promised myself when I began this blog a few weeks ago that, trying to keep this site faithfully Catholic, I would refrain from bishop-bashing. To the extent that I have bashed Bishop Lynch in this post with respect to my comments about his lack of leadership on the Schiavo issue, such bashing begins and ends here.