It's getting hard to open my email or look at a paper without having to see That Hideous Story, the one which makes me sick and sad and furious all at once. I mean, of course, the slow judicial execution of Terri Schiavo. Here's a woman who was not in a coma, was not brain dead, and didn't require elaborate machines to stay alive—just a nutrition drip in the stomach, of the sort any one of us might need after, say, a tonsillectomy. (The feeding tube is eerily analogous to an umbilical cord.) And yet American courts have decided that her adulterous husband has the right to impose her death by starvation and thirst. That second word keeps coming back to me. If Terri Schiavo could speak today, what would she certainly say to us? She would say, with Jesus: "I thirst." In a momentary lapse of mercy, Michael Schiavo at last permitted his wife a single drop of Christ's Precious Blood.

Death by thirst is slow, agonizing, almost unthinkably awful. As St. Louis neurologist William Burke told author Wesley Smith, as he was researching his book on euthanasia Forced Exit, people deprived of water "go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucus membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining. They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! Death by dehydration takes ten to fourteen days. It is an extremely agonizing death."

If Terri Schiavo could speak today, what would she certainly say to us? She would say, with Jesus: “I thirst.”

Have you ever seen pictures of immigrants found parched to death in the Arizona desert? Imagine that happening in a nice, clean hospital room, by order of the court. (Cue "God Bless America" for the soundtrack.)

All this came to a head at the worst possible time—Holy Week and the Easter season. If I were the suspicious type, I would say there was a conspiracy afoot, that current events are colluding with pushy Providence to make us think about the Cross. Personally, I don't resist the thought that Jesus died on my behalf. (Better Him than me.) I went to see The Passion (though I fled for coffee during the scourging), and on Good Friday, I spent much of the day in church, listening to the Seven Last Words of Christ, venerating His cross and burial shroud. I'm grateful, and moved, and feel stirrings of piety when I look upon the Cross. Just don't try nailing me up there.

Another creepy coincidence: Terri's last name, "Schiavo," means "slave." There was a major figure in the Bible who, it's said, shrugged off divinity's privileges and "took the form of a slave,"—then died hideously, at the hands of a callous ruler, who washed his hands of the case. I'll give you a hint: He has a Puerto Rican first name.

When I read about Terri's husband, hear his arrogant interviews with the press, my first reaction is to make like good, dopey St. Peter in the Garden, and decide it's Killer Time, remembering that if Michael Schiavo were to "assume room temperature," Terri's parents would get custody and save her... It's enough to give a guy from Queens some crazy thoughts. Illegal thoughts. Best to banish such notions of violence by meditating on Jesus's words to Peter, "Put away thy sword. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword." If that doesn't work, think about the prison rape statistics. Best not to go there. Sorry, Terri—you're on your own. Why don't you try calling upon Elijah?

I can't lift a finger to help you, nor can your parents, nor, apparently, can the President and both houses of Congress. The Sanhedrin has spoken, and their carefully vetted crowds of activists shout in unison to crucify you, and set your Barabbas free. Barabbas has better lawyers, and the judge in his pocket—besides, he represents our deepest and truest aspirations as Americans: the chance to start fresh, to walk away from the dying wife's sickbed and trade her in for a younger model, take the cute new chick to Cancun on the insurance money. I wonder if our poor soldiers guarding Abu Gharib ever step back to realize that this is Why We Fight: So Barabbas can get the new girl and ride off into the sunset, listening to Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville." Fade to Black.

I’m grateful, and moved, and feel stirrings of piety when I look upon the Cross. Just don’t try nailing me up there.

Who am I to throw stones? Unlike some other writers on this site, I haven't the fortitude to minister to quadriplegics. Far from it. To be brutally honest, I can't even bear looking at pictures of Terri Schiavo—or for that matter, retarded children. Does that mean we're allowed to kill them? God imposed the Ten Commandments some time ago to stop us from acting on such animal instincts. Mother birds will peck to death their defective chicks; alas, we're held to a higher standard.

But I have to ask myself, what would I do with a wife who was crippled and non-communicative, whom the doctors called a vegetable? Would I live as a celibate, sitting vigil by her bedside, reading aloud to her from Anne Katherine Emmerich about the value of redemptive suffering, offering up my own deprivations for her good? As if.

Absent a sudden explosion of supernatural grace, I'd do the obvious, worldly thing: I'd probably find a girlfriend, and walk away. If my guardian devil were on his job, I might even look for some theological justification to pull the plug. Are you sure that allowing oxygen in the room doesn't count as an extraordinary means? I'd like to think that I wouldn't withdraw food and water, but then I'd also like to say that I'd have shouted against the crowds for Pilate to set Jesus free. But would I really? Would you?

Try a little Ignatian exercise here: Use each of your senses to see, hear, smell, feel, even taste the crowd's outrage at this crazy prophet who made such excessive, outrageous demands, and flouted the leaders of our favorite right-wing sect. Imagine your favorite televangelist, or bishop, urging you to cry for His conviction, and let yourself forever off the hook. Should Pilate set free this eerily gentle, impossibly authoritative man who demands you join Him on the cross? Or the sensible, practical, hothead who stands on the left? Barabbas is us.

Remember what the missalette told you to say on Palm Sunday, in unison: "Crucify him!" "Give us Barabbas!" It felt weird, didn't it? Because it cut too close to home. In our heart of hearts, don't we prefer Barabbas to Jesus, Michael Schiavo to Terri? Which of the Schiavos would you rather have as a roommate? Compare their Craig's List ads: "Self-reliant, healthy young man with normal drives and a nice new girlfriend seeks couch where he can crash." Or "Suffering shell of a person with a crippled brain, whose greatest achievement is occasionally to smile at visitors, seeks someone to turn her body several times a day and changer her diapers." Be honest, please. Give me Barabbas.

But this is not the end of the story. There is hope for Michael Schiavo, even for you and me.

Some observers profess hope that the ugly spectacle of Terri Schiavo on the cross will awaken Americans to the sanctity of life. Well, as the gorilla guard told the caged Charlton Heston, who asked when he might hope to be released: "You may HOPE any time you like." More likely, I fear, Terri's suffering will make us think of quicker, less openly cruel means to speed the end of life. The other night, the BBC interviewed working-class residents of Detroit. These churchgoing Americans were horrified at Terri's suffering, and asked why she couldn't be put swiftly out of her misery. "How much could a lethal injection cost?" one mother inquired. "If it's good enough for our felons, why not for our brain-injury patients." We'll recut The Passion to rate it "G," and offer our future Terris when they cry "I thirst" no more than a sponge soaked in sedatives. It's good enough for our felons.

But this is not the end of the story—the blood-soaked ground, and Judas hanging in a halter, serenaded by the buzzing of the flies. There is hope for Michael Schiavo, even for you and me. Many of the men who compassed Jesus' death would be transformed by it. Cardinal Ratzinger reminds us in his Way of the Cross that many of the Jews in the crowd who called out "Crucify him!" would be converted at Pentecost, and spill their own blood after His, following Him to resurrection. Ancient tradition tells us that Longinus, who pierced Christ's side, went on to die a Christian martyr, that Barabbas repented and became a disciple, that even that most unjust of judges, Pontius Pilate, in his old age took up the cross. In our day, we read similar testimonies: Norma McCorvey, a simple woman who allowed her story to be twisted into a lie to unleash the scourge of Roe v. Wade, now spends herself to reverse that crime. Robert MacNamara, an architect of America's saturation bombings of Japan and then Vietnam, has spent three decades atoning for it; in Errol Morris' The Fog of War he agonizingly explains how far he went astray from human decency and Christian tradition in targeting civilians, and embraces once again the firm limits sets by Just War teaching. In The Hand of God, the pioneering abortionist Bernard Nathanson traces for us the bloodied steps of his conversion. Fr. Jacek Buda, the chaplain of Columbia University, recounts how Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz, at the end renounced his life as a missionary of Hell, and cheerfully accepted his own death sentence. That cannot comfort his victims upon the earth; perhaps he will spend eternity ministering to them in heaven. Likewise, the death of Terri Schiavo may prove a redemptive mercy. One wonders if the Christians of America, having seen the "justice" of their judges, will ever sit back and allow the appointment of further Pilates to our courts. I think they will not. I think that in God's Providence, we have hit bottom—and reached a turning point.

So let us pray for Michael Schiavo, the one who walks the earth, and the piece of him which each of us bears in our flesh, in genes from fallen Adam. Let us imagine him as the decades wear on, and pleasures dull, and conscience gnaws, and shame creeps in like rust, becoming a very magnet for God's mercy. Let us picture him, grey and aged, at a microphone in a dank church basement, giving his testimony. We will welcome him with the mercy we crave ourselves.

Happy Easter, my friends.