Earlier this week Gerard Van der Leun explained how a lucrative book deal - with an advance in the $3 million range - may be awaiting Michael Schiavo. Gerard is a former editor at a major publisher and knows how the business works, for good and ill.

As a motive for keeping the case and the controversy going, I was skeptical. I commented there, “I don’t really think that either side expected or wanted it to get to this point, and so ascribing commercial motives to either Michael or the Schindlers is really unwarranted.”

But now I see that Glenn Reynolds has linked to this report by WKMG TV news, a CBS affiliate in Orlando, Fla.:

If you expressed your support to Terri Schiavo and her parents fight to keep her alive, you may begin to receive a steady stream of solicitations, according to a Local 6 News report.

Terri Schiavo’s parents have agreed to sell their list of supporters to a direct-mailing firm, Local 6 News reported.

The company, “Response Unlimited” pays about $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 6,000 e-mail addresses.

A spokesperson for the Schindlers confirmed that they had agreed to sell the information, but won’t say for how much.

Really, I’m not sure quite what to think, but I don’t have a good opinion about this at first blush. What repulses me is that the Schindlers announced this (apparently) on the same day their daughter died. The same day! Good heavens.

Update: Scott Forbes says that the NYT reported this sale on March 29, “so the parents didn’t announce the sale on the day of their daughter’s death; it still scores about a 9.9 on the Crass-O-Meter, but nonetheless. ” Yep.

Reports he was administered “last rites” - which means what?

CNN.com is reporting that a “Vatican source” says that Pope John Paul II was administered last rites Thursday night as his health continued to deteriorate.

The pope is suffering from a high fever caused by a urinary tract infection, the Vatican confirmed earlier Thursday — one day after revealing he had been put on a nasal feeding tube for nutrition.

The pope is taking antibiotics, a Vatican spokesman said.

“Last rites” is really a misnomer of this sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. The proper name of the sacrament referred to is “Anointing of the Sick,” and is often performed routinely in Catholic churches for anyone who requests it; some parish priests offer the sacrament on a regular schedule at their churches. It is intended for persons suffering from illness or affliction or who are facing medical procedures such as surgery. According to American Catholic,

In these cases the person does not have to wait until the illness is so grave that he or she is in the hospital or institutionalized to celebrate the sacrament. Sacraments, after all, are community celebrations. It is preferable to celebrate them in the context of family and parish even before going to the hospital. The sick person has a better opportunity to appreciate the prayers and symbols of the rite when in her or his customary worshiping community.

“Last rites” was never the name of this sacrament, nor the sacrament Anointing the Sick replaced, which was “Extreme Unction.” E. Unction was superceded in 1972 and was officially oriented toward forgiveness, healing and wholeness, but came over time to be offered mostly when death loomed. Hence its vernacular name, “last rites.”

Since 1972, however, the RCC has restored the early-church practice of anointing the sick and praying for healing whenever it is called for, not just when death looms. In fact, John Paul received this sacrament when he was shot by would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Agca in Rome in 1981, although John Paul later said that he never thought he was in mortal danger, despite his serious wounds.

What is a sacrament? Says American Catholic (link),

The Latin word sacramentum means “a sign of the sacred.” The seven sacraments are ceremonies that point to what is sacred, significant and important for Christians. They are special occasions for experiencing God’s saving presence. That’s what theologians mean when they say that sacraments are at the same time signs and instruments of God’s grace.

The Roman Catholic Church maintains that the following acts were instituted or blessed by Jesus as specially significant means of receiving divine grace: baptism, Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper), reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, holy orders (ordination), anointing of the sick.

Not all Protestant churches have a theology of sacraments, and those that do recognize two, not seven. They are Communion (a typical Protestant name for Eucharist) and baptism. Tne United Methodist Church, for example, says that these two sacraments are “instituted means of grace.” When someone receives them in faith, we have the Lord’s assurance that s/he will receive the grace of God in the act of receiving.

Update: I don’t mean to imply that John Paul is not very seriously ill or that simply understanding that Anointing is not done only for dying people means he is not (possibly) dying. He may well be.

There was some rumoring that the College of Cardinals - which elects the pope when necessary - has been called to the Vatican, which was seen as boding ill for John Paul’s prospects. In fact, the College has been called to the Vatican, but the summons is for May, not now, and was made by John Paul himself in February. The purpose is to ” to discuss church strategy in the new millennium.”

I do recall, though, that when Princess Diana was killed in the Paris automobile accident in May 1997, the British government broke the news to its people and the world by using carefully coded statements. A close Army friend was visiting on the day and when we heard that the British government’s statement described Diana’s condition as “grave,” we turned to each other and simultaneously said, “She’s dead.”

A broadcast news report today also said that John Paul’s condition had been described as “grave,” but I don’t know to whom the description was attributed, so we can’t read too much into it.

Update: Coded language of official announcements confirmed:

THE Vatican may have been preparing the world for the death of Pope John Paul II with its grim pronouncements on his health, a senior Italian cardinal was quoted as saying today.

“If the papal authorities are giving out this information, it means that there is really a lot of fear and that maybe they want us to understand to prepare for the worst,” Cardinal Achille Silvestrini told the daily La Repubblica.

Be that as it may, reports now say that John Paul is improving.

Pope John Paul II seems to be reacting well to antibiotic treatment and his condition “appears to have been stabilised,” the Vatican’s official radio said on Friday.

The announcement came as hundreds of faithful, holding candles, praying, and in tears, stood outside the Vatican in the early hours of Friday, many fearing the worst for the Pope.

“The pontiff seems to be reacting well to the antibiotics that he has been administered, and, at the very end of the evening, his condition appears to have stabilised,” Vatican radio said in a report posted on its website.

Which is good news.

Because the Pinellas County medical examiner has claimed jurisdiction over the remains of Terri Schiavo, here is a little explanation of what autopsies determine. I learned a lot about the subject when I served in US Army Criminal Investigation Command. From an autopsy, the ME determines the following:

Cause of death - this is the determination of the medical series of events that were the proximate cause of the death. In Terri’s case it is almost certain to be organ failure(s) brought about by dehydration.

Manner of death - this is the ME’s professional assessment of whether the cause of death is attributable to the following:

1. Natural causes, which means that the deceased died from disease, including the infirmities of old age when applicable.

2. Suicide - this determination is rarely (if ever) determinable solely from an autopsy. The ME can only determine whether the cause of death was consistent with suicide, such as a broken hyoid bone in the neck, which results from hanging but not from choking.

3. Homicide - a death caused intentionally by another person. Again, whether the homicide was illegal is not determinable from the autopsy alone. The ME cannot tell, for example, whether the deceased was killed by another in justifiable self defense.

4. Accident - think of this as either unintentional self killing or unintentional homicide. Almost always this finding requires other investigation.

5. Undetermined - no conclusion can be drawn. For example, a body is found at the bottom of a tall cliff. The cause of death is blunt force trauma (hitting the ground) but absent other information the ME cannot determine whether the deceased jumped or was pushed or slipped and fell of the cliff.

I won’t try to predict what the ME’s determinations will be, except that accident and suicide seem pretty well ruled out. Homicide is too, since Terri’s death resulted from court rulings that Terri herself was expressed a desire not to be kept alive in her condition. So on the face of it, natural causes is the most likely finding.

The interesting question is this: what if the autopsy finds that Terri had suffered bodily injury/ies after she first fell ill, and that are consistent with being intentionally inflicted upon her? Rumors have abounded about Michael’s activities alone in Terri’s room.

One thing to remember is that unless a tissue injury is very recent an autopsy won’t discover it. So the ME will be able only to determine injuries to bones, possibly organs also, but again, in this circumstance that would be pretty tough. However, organs are excellent repositories of chemical evidence that could reveal whether Terri ingested or inhaled damaging substances (but evidence is also metabolized out of the body as well).

Again, my guess is that people hoping the autopsy will reveal evidence of Michael’s culpability will be disappointed. Even if, say, certain bones are revealed to be (or have been) broken at or after the time of her initial injury, determining the circumstances will be highly problematic and legally difficult case to make.

Representatives of both Michael Schiavo and Terri’s parents have confirmed this morning that Terri Schiavo died this morning.

Update: News reports in the last couple of days have said that Michael Schiavo had consented to an autopsy, then other reports said he had consented only to an autopsy of Terri’s brain. However, according to the Pinellas County medical examiner, speaking on TV today, Terri’s autopsy is governed by Florida law and the family has no say whatsoever.

The Tennessean has a columnist whose nom de plume is “Ms. Cheap.” She writes about ways to save money in everyday living and her column has quite a following. Being the spendthrift that I am, I never read it, but I (ahem, dear) know people who do.

Today’s column is different. Rather than tucked on the side or a back page, it’s the major feature of the paper’s Living section. It’s called, “Whittle wedding costs without sacrificing dream day.” The topic is how to get married without taking out a mortgage to pay for it - the average southeast-America wedding’s cost tops $18,000, according to a cited book, Bridal Bargains: Secrets to Throwing a Fantastic Wedding on a Realistic Budget.

That’s a lot of dough for a few hours’ fun by anyone’s book. Ms. Cheap emphasizes using a lot of sweat equity to supply the wedding: it’s almost always cheaper to do work yourself rather than pay someone else. Buy supplies at discount houses such as Sam’s or Costco, she says, and make ‘em fancy on your own. One bride took a floral arrangement class so she could buy bulk flowers on the cheap and arrange them herself; the money she saved more than paid for the class. Other tips:

• ‘’For the reception, you can do hors d’oeuvres only instead of a sit-down dinner or do buffet style, where you don’t have to pay servers,'’ says Chelsea Bates.

• Do your research. ‘’Check with at least three caterers before deciding, and be sure to go to their offices and sample the food,'’ Traci Ryland offers via e-mail.

• Be creative. I received lots of suggestions to have picnics or barbecues, Mexican dinners or an afternoon tea as a reception, all less costly than the traditional reception.

• ‘’Make your own cake topper,'’ suggests Robin Boyce. ‘’You can buy them at any craft store and decorate it yourself.'’ She also suggests buying your own unity candle and decorating it yourself.

I’ve had no little experience in the wedding biz, so here’s my two cents worth, not all financial:

The old saw about the bride’s mother wanting to relive (or repair!) her own wedding by micromanaging her daughter’s wedding is unfortunately sometimes true. But moms need to understand that their daughters are getting married at later ages than earlier generations. That means that usually the brides are already successful in careers and are used to making decisions. Moms and dad should offer perspective, not control.

Do not spend a lot of money for decorations. By the end of the honeymoon you won’t remember the decorations and they mostly get thrown away, anyhow. Wedding suppliers really push them hard because they are massively profitable, but less really is more. Be minimalist.

Your reception food is a courtesy, not a commitment. Brides and grooms will get to eat precious little of it, and anyone accepts your invitation just to be well fed probably shoouldn’t be invited in the first place. Finger food is fine, unless you deliberately intend to serve dinner at the reception.

The article is absolutely correct here:

Do not skimp on photography. ‘’Hire a professional, quality person to do the photography. The cake gets eaten, the flowers die and the dress gets old, but the photos live forever,'’ Goff says.

An increasing number of bridal parties are having the wedding portraits done before the ceremony rather than after, as of old. This is a really good idea. The bride’s, bridesmaids’ and mothers’ makeup is fresh (and unstained by tears!), they are more relaxed and unhurried, and they don’t keep the wedding guests waiting at the reception. As for the old saw about how the groom shouldn’t see the bride on their wedding day until she processes down the aisle, that sort of went away when more than half of marrying couples are already living together, so what’s the point?

What you will remember is people, not things, so spend money to enrich the party, not the vendors.

Agence France Presse is reporting that the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981 - which almost did kill him - was ordered by the old Soviet KGB, the “Committee for State Security.” Comments Civil Commotion,

This has been rumored for a long while, of course, and it is totally believable. It was John Paul II who went to Poland during Lech Walesa?s Solidarity uprising, defying the old Soviet Union to stop him, and kicked-off the disintegration of the USSR.

In fact, the Vatican and President Ronald Reagan’s administration closely coordinated subverting the Communist government of Poland, the Pope’s home country. That came after the assassination attempt, of course, since Reagan entered office only in 1981.

However, the man who took the name John Paul II when elected Pope had been a staunch anti-communist resister in Poland for years. In the early 1970s,

… Karol Cardinal Wojtyla emerged as a strong advocate of human rights and promoted an independent intellectual life. In 1974 Communist Party ideologue Andrej Werbian called the Cardinal “the only real ideological threat in Poland.”

Wojtyla is, of course, John Paul’s Polish name. Wojtyla was elected Pope in 1978, just before the Solidarity workers’ movement was gaining its steam, led by electrician Lech Walesa.

In August 1980 [Walesa] led the Gdansk shipyard strike which gave rise to a wave of strikes over much of the country with Walesa seen as the leader. The primary demands were for workers’ rights. The authorities were forced to capitulate and to negotiate with Walesa the Gdansk Agreement of August 31, 1980, which gave the workers the right to strike and to organise their own independent union.

If any one event had helped to create the psychological climate in which Solidarity trades union emerged, it was the visit of Pope John Paul II to his homeland in June 1979. From the moment that the Pope knelt in Warsaw’s airport to kiss the ground, he was cheered wildly by millions of Poles. John Paul never criticized the Communist regime directly, nor did he have to: his meaning was plain enough. “The exclusion of Christ from the history of man is an act against man,” he told an enormous outdoor congregation in Warsaw. With that hardly veiled allusion to Communism, a deafening roar of approval filled the great city square. Says a Polish bishop of that day: “The Polish people broke the barrier of fear. They were hurling a challenge at their Marxist rulers.”

During the August 1980 defiance of the communist authorities, the Lenin shipyard functioned as the emotional center of an extraordinary national movement. Festooned with flowers, white and red Polish flags and portraits of Pope John Paul II, the plant’s iron gates came to symbolize that heady mixture of hope, faith and patriotism that sustained the workers through their vigil. …

Then in January 1981 Pope John Paul received Walesa at the Vatican and met with him privately for thirty minutes, an unusual honor for a layman of the Church.

In May of that year, Mehmet Ali Agca, an escaped Turkish killer, shot John Paul twice while the Pope was riding in his “Popemobile,” a convertible he used to wave to crowds while standing as the vehicle moved along. According to AFP’s wire report,

New documents found in the files of the former East German intelligence services confirm the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II was ordered by the Soviet KGB and assigned to Bulgarian agents, an Italian daily said on Wednesday. …

Bulgaria then handed the execution of the plot to Turkish extremists, including Mehmet Ali Agca, who pulled the trigger.

It’s doubtful that Agca ever knew who actually was paying him. In December 1983, John Paul met with Agca in prison.

“We talked for a long time. Ali Agca is, as everyone says, a professional assassin. Which means that the assassination was not his initiative, that someone else thought of it, someone else gave the order,” he wrote.

“During the entire conversation, it was clear that Ali Agca was burdened by the question: How did it happen that the assassination was unsuccessful? He did everything that was necessary, he took care of the tiniest detail of his plan. But still the victim avoided death. How could this have happened?”

Agca had shot John Paul in the arm and the abdomen. John Paul himself said that divine intervention had steered the latter bullet away from his vital organs. He has never said whom he thought was behind the plot to kill him, but did attribute the attempt to convulsions of “the 20th century ideologies of force.” In 2002, however, John Paul said that he did not believe the Bulgarians were connected to his assailant.