Catholics link Schiavo case with Good Friday events

AS Christians reflect on Jesus’s death this Good Friday, some also are giving special attention to Terri Schiavo — particularly Catholics who count Ms Schiavo as one of their own, and whose Church has been increasingly vocal this week in calling for the reinsertion of a feeding tube into the brain-damaged Florida woman.

Eternal Word Television Network, an Alabama-based Catholic cable service that reaches more than 100 million homes worldwide, is interrupting previously scheduled sacred programmes for a Friday evening broadcast that will treat the Schiavo case through interviews with family and a neurologist.

News director Raymond Arroyo said the network’s “extraordinary” programming switch was driven by the public outpouring of concern over both Schiavo’s plight and the frail health of Pope John Paul II.