New York, USA -- The powerful outcry over Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose case has provoked a national debate over whether she should live or die, is a testament to the growing alliance of conservative Roman Catholics and evangelicals who have found common cause in the "culture of life" agenda articulated by Pope John Paul II.
In their fight to keep their daughter alive, Ms. Schiavo's parents, who are Catholics, have been backed by an ad hoc coalition of Catholic and evangelical lobbyists, street organizers and legal advisers like the Rev. Frank Pavone, the Catholic priest who runs a group called Priests for Life and evangelical Protestants like Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, and the Rev. Pat Mahoney of the National Clergy Council.
The struggle is only the latest indication of a strengthening religious alliance between denominations that were once bitterly divided. Evangelical leaders say they frequently lean on Catholic intellectuals like Robert George at Princeton University and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the journal First Things, to help them frame political issues theologically.
An increasing number of Catholics hold crucial staff positions in some of the religious conservative groups that lobby Washington. And conservative Catholics and evangelicals meet weekly in Virginia with a broad array of right-leaning lobbyists.
"The idea of building a culture that values human life is a Catholic articulation, but it echoes in the hearts of many people, evangelicals and others," said William L. Saunders Jr., director of the Center for Human Life and Bioethics at the Family Research Council in Washington.
"It was articulated by John Paul II, who is a great hero to pro-life people, regardless of their church," said Mr. Saunders, who is among the Catholics working at an organization founded by or affiliated with evangelicals.
The "culture of life" language has been widely adopted by conservative politicians. President Bush said in a news conference yesterday that government must "err on the side of life" in making every effort to keep Ms. Schiavo alive.
The Catholics and evangelicals first joined forces in the anti-abortion movement. And their alliance has now extended to include promoting sexual abstinence education and opposing stem-cell research and euthanasia. It is an array of issues they link under the rubric of "respect for the sanctity of life," whether that life is an "unborn baby" or an unresponsive patient lying in a hospice bed.
"Who can judge the dignity and sacredness of the life of a human being, made in the image and likeness of God?" asked the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, on Monday, commenting on the Schiavo situation. "Who can decide to pull the plug as if we were talking about a broken or out-of-order household appliance?"
Burke J. Balch, director of the Powell Center for Medical Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee, said the religious alliance on the Schiavo case had also been given a great boost by disability rights organizations that saw Ms. Schiavo as a disabled American deserving legal protection.
Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic who runs Joni and Friends, an evangelical ministry for disability rights in Los Angeles, said: "When you look at those videotapes, you are unable to rule out that she is in some way conscious or cognizant. When reasonable doubts like that are raised, we who are disabled believe her condition should be exhaustively investigated."
Historically, the Catholic and evangelical alliance is very new. Less than half a century ago, Catholics and evangelicals still shared little but a history of mutual contempt and mistrust. When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, evangelical leaders sent out a letter to Protestant pastors asking them to preach against him, arguing that as a Catholic, his true allegiance was to Rome.
It was only 11 years ago that a group of evangelical and Catholic leaders and theologians released a groundbreaking statement, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together," drafted after a series of unusual meetings. While the document treated primarily theological issues, it said that evangelicals and Catholics could unite on a broad social agenda that included "pro-life" issues, strengthening the family and government support for religious schools.
Now the alliance of evangelicals and Catholics is among the most powerful forces molding American politics. Last year, conservative evangelicals cheered when a handful of Catholic bishops said that Senator John Kerry, the Catholic who was the Democratic presidential nominee, should not take communion because of his stance on abortion. Mr. Bush courted evangelical and Catholic voters in 2004 and benefited from their mobilization.
But evangelicals have so far shown little interest in joining Catholics in opposing the death penalty, which Catholics also regard as a "culture of life" issue.
On Monday, Catholic bishops announced a renewed campaign to oppose the death penalty. A representative of the bishops said that while he did not expect that Protestant organizations or denominations that support the death penalty would change their positions, he did find change among individual Protestants who had been exposed to Catholic thinking.
"Certainly in the Catholic tradition, culture of life includes concern about the death penalty," said Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of pro-life activities at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "There are many Protestants who've been great admirers of Pope John Paul II and his witness, and have well-thumbed copies of his encyclical on the gospel of life, and have read it more carefully than Catholics have. And as a result, they have done more thinking on the death penalty, as well."
People who have opposed removing Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube have said in interviews that evangelicals were the first to take a stand in their support, even though Ms. Schiavo is Catholic. Her parents had the spiritual support of individual priests, but Catholic bishops had been reluctant to become involved, with a Florida bishop's issuing a statement saying he would "refrain from passing judgment."
There were differences of opinion among Catholic ethicists, Mr. Doerflinger said, on whether assisted feeding constituted exceptional medical intervention, which is not necessary under all circumstances, or "basic care," which must be provided to a sick person. He said the pope helped clarify the teaching a year ago, after delivering a message to a Rome conference on end-of life-issues in which he said that providing food and water was "morally obligatory."
The pope said, "I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act."
Since then, bishops have spoken out unequivocally on the Schiavo case. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington said Monday that the court-ordered removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube was a "form of euthanasia," which the Catholic Church condemns as "gravely wrong."