As the Pope’s health failed and he drew near death, he made the reasonable decision to not go to the hospital.

This is a decision we should all be able to make.

When my Grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, she opted not to receive treatment and went home. When she was able to get around anymore, she spent her last weeks at her son’s house. This is as it ought to be.

But I have one nagging problem with the Pope’s decision. He had spoken out against allowing Terri Schiavo’s corpse to die. Surely he had more “life” to be held in sanctity than a woman with spinal fluid where her cerebral cortex ought to have been.

I have disagreed with JP II many, many times. But I always respected him as a man of conviction. His acceptance of the physical suffering wrought by Parkinson’s confirmed this respect. But perhaps, at the very end, he realized he could not follow those convictions into a prolonged death struggle.

I’d make the same call - but I haven’t been going around condemning Micheal Schiavo.