Posted on 01/23/2006 7:12:44 AM PST by NYer
SAFETY HARBOR - Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze were married in a private ceremony at Espiritu Santo Catholic Church on Saturday.
"It was very emotional," said John Centonze, brother of the bride, just after the noon ceremony. "It's been a long time coming. A lot of things happened in between."
The wedding came a day after the couple applied for a Pinellas County marriage license and 10 months after the death of Schiavo's first wife, Terri.
Terri Schiavo died March 31, two weeks after her feeding tube was removed, and 15 years after a cardiac arrest that left her in what most doctors called a persistent vegetative state. Her death was a most public process, with the Florida Legislature, Congress, the courts, pundits and interest groups weighing in.
The wedding, in contrast, was private. Mindful of the media circus that had whirled about Terri Schiavo's hospice for weeks, along with throngs of protesters, the families kept the time and location of Saturday's ceremony a secret. Three St. Petersburg Times journalists arrived at the church, but were asked not to go in.
Schiavo wore a black tuxedo and Centonze wore a long, flowing, white wedding gown. Their two children attended. The bride and groom did not make any public comment.
"Except for the fact that the world knows their name, it was like any wedding you've ever been to," said Michael Hirsh, who attended, and who is helping Schiavo write a book titled Terri: The Truth.
Hirsh estimated about 80 people attended. The priest offered no homily. Afterward the wedding party went to a reception at East Lake Country Club.
"It was just a beautiful ceremony," Hirsh said. "Everyone there was just extremely happy for them."
Hirsh said, "There weren't a lot of dry eyes in the place."
Centonze agreed. "I had a couple tears," he said.
Schiavo and Jodi Centonze met in a dentist's office and began dating a few years later. Terri Schiavo already had suffered her accident, and already was living in a nursing home.
Schiavo referred to Jodi Centonze as his fiancee for more than five years, as the Terri Schiavo case worked its way through the court system, and the halls of the Florida Legislature and Congress.
Some of Schiavo's friends compared him during this time to a man whose wife had Alzheimer's disease; he still loved his wife but also wanted companionship. But in the superheated rhetoric of Terri Schiavo's last months, critics called him an adulterer because he had taken up with another woman while still married.
In 1990, cardiac arrest deprived Terri Schiavo of oxygen for five minutes. Doctors eventually diagnosed her as being in a persistent vegetative state, meaning she was not conscious of her surroundings.
However, Terri Schiavo's family sharply disagreed and consulted doctors who disputed or doubted the diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state. They hoped to keep her alive and give her extensive therapy.
An autopsy concluded that Terri Schiavo never would have recovered from the brain damage she suffered during her 1990 collapse. Doctors have never competely understood what brought on her initial cardiac arrest.
This guy has a special place in hell reserved for him.
I hate this Mofo!!!!!
As a Catholic, I'm embarassed that a priest would perform this wedding.
Make damn sure,Jodi,that he never,*ever* takes out a life insurance policy on you....not even one for $100.
Careful Jodi, don't get "bulemic"...
As a Catholic, I want to know what the h*ll was this priest thinking?
Ok, my mistake; I assumed he was thinking in the first place. Sounds like a wanna-be Jesuit to me.
You know, I read the headline and my brain plugged in that guy who murdered his wife and put her in the drink with cement shoes...What was his name?
"The wedding came a day after the couple applied for a Pinellas County marriage license and 10 months after the death of Schiavo's first wife, Terri."
So...How many think this is the reason Mr. Schiavo wanted Terri's life to be terminated by that "all-wise" judge in Florida?
You mean sleeping with someone not your wife while you're still married isn't adultery anymore? How many other words have had their meaning changed while I wasn't paying attention?
Those murdering adulterers married in the CATHOLIC church??? That is simply DISGRACEFUL. Makes me sick to my stomach!
It's very wierd, but in my investigation into advance directives after the atrocity of Terri's murder, I discovered there is a segment of liberal Catholics who are not opposed to denying food and water to the disabled. It's appalling and evil.
So because she would have never recovered it's okay to make up law?
And a PRIEST performed the wedding? I hope they went to confession first.
I am quite sure it wasn't ANYTHING like the last wedding I went to. :)
Terri Schiavo died March 31, two weeks after her feeding tube was removed, and 15 years after a cardiac arrest
What's the over/under on when Jodi comes down with her "cardiac arrest"? I say 27 months.
They would have been if they got the same treatment Mikey gave Terri.
Maybe the priest was also embarassed, couldn't even choke out a homily.
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