Schindler Advisors Refused Treatment for Founder?

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Saturday March 26, 2005 · 4:51 PM PST

2005/03/26 · 16:51

I posted this as a comment but I think it deserves another look. Actually what I am about to write is really none of anybody's business but given that Brother Paul, the Schindler's "spiritual advisor" has obviously taken a position on Terri Schiavo's case, it seems relevant, albeit distasteful.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/23/Tampabay/Friars_at_Schindlers_.shtml

A Florida paper reports that three members of the Franciscan Brothers of Peace
"have been at the side of the Schinlder family as it fights to have Terri's Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted."

It seems this staunch right-to-life order was faced with a similar decision when their founder became brain damaged after suffering a heart attack. Here's what the paper reports.

In 1982, Michael Gaworski founded the order.
The fledgling group took over a former convent and the Brothers began collecting food and clothing for the needy, ministering to international survivors of torture, witnessing at a juvenile detention center and conducting sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics.

Gaworski suffered a heart attack in 1991 that left him in a condition similar to that of Terri Schiavo - with severe brain damage and dependent on a feeding tube for nourishment. For the next 12 years, the friars cared for Gaworski in their downtown St. Paul friary.
"Through his condition," Brother John Kaspari said Tuesday from St. Paul, "we came to embrace others in similar states."

The article then suggests that the Brothers, when faced with artificially prolonging life, decided to refuse medical treatment on behalf of their friend and leader. Unless I'm reading this quote wrong, they decided for him to stop further medical interventions and let him die. Here's what the newspaper said:

Gaworski contracted pneumonia and died in 2003 at age 45.

"He would have required intubation to keep him alive," Kaspari said. "We chose not to go that route. His lungs were full of fluid."

Is he saying what I think he is saying?

I'm not questioning their decision but for a bunch of "culture of lifers" does this represent a degree of hypocrisy? I was stunned when I read this.

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Schindler Advisors Refused Treatment for Founder?

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