VATICAN CITY - The Roman Catholic Church on Monday condemned legal attempts in the United States to allow a brain-damaged woman to die after 15 years in a semi-vegetative state, saying that "The agony of Terri (Schiavo) is the agony of humanity."
"Who can, and on what grounds, decide who should be allowed the 'privilege' of living?" the official Vatican paper Osservatore Romano asked rhetorically in a commentary on the case, which has become a political issue addressed personally by US President George W. Bush.
"The slow and terrible agony of Terri is today an agony of the meaning of God ... the agony of the love shown by whoever is able to care for whoever is the most vulnerable. It is the agony of humanity," the paper added.
The fate of Schiavo, whose case has sparked an emotional debate over the right to die with dignity, was placed in the hands of a federal judge on Monday, after Bush signed controversial legislation to prolong her life.
Schiavo has been incapacitated since a 1990 cardiac arrest that damaged her brain.
Her feeding tube was removed Friday after a protracted legal battle that pits her husband Michael Schiavo against her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. It had been removed and replaced twice before.
03/21/2005 15:23 GMT