Michael Schiavo Denies Terri Her Final Communion

Steven Ertelt

October 19, 2003

Pinellas Park, FL

In a development that has angered supporters of Terri Schiavo, a Catholic priest was denied the ability to give the dying woman a final communion.

Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski joined Terri's parents Bob and Mary Schindler at a press conference on Saturday to explain that police officers prevented him from giving her the Catholic rite of Viaticum, the last communion for a Catholic before death.

Deborah Bushnell, another of Michael Schiavo's attorneys, told Malanowski, who has provided spiritual care for Terri and her parents for the last three years, that ''because of court order and doctor's orders, you can't put anything in her mouth."

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