A catholic (and Catholic) perspective on Schiavo: The Terri Schiavo case is about one thing only, says Rev. John Paris, a Boston College bioethicist and Catholic priest: "The power of the Christian right. This case has nothing to do with the legal issues involving a feeding tube." Versed in laws of both church and state, Paris says it has very little to do with what "radical right-to-lifers" say it does:

The sanctity of life? This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. The Roman Catholic Church has a consistent 400-year-old tradition that I'm sure you are familiar with. It says nobody is obliged to undergo extraordinary means to preserve life.

This is Holy Week, this is when the Catholic community is saying, "We understand that life is not an absolute good and death is not an absolute defeat." The whole story of Easter is about the triumph of eternal life over death. Catholics have never believed that biological life is an end in and of itself. We've been created as a gift from God and are ultimately destined to go back to God. And we've been destined in this life to be involved in relationships. And when the capacity for that life is exhausted, there is no obligation to make officious efforts to sustain it.

Read his interview at Salon.com.

A schism? Paris' viewpoint may suggest that doctinal Catholics don't buy into the Bush extremists' point of view on the Schiavo case (although a New York Times piece claims the opposite). A CBS poll says that 68% of white American evangelicals say Bush and Congress should butt out (compared to 82% of the general public), and black evangelicals are none too thrilled either. And an increasing number of conservatives think Bush's incursion into states'-rights territory is anything but conservative. Are cracks forming in the once iron-clad conservative/Christian right alliance?