The father of Alfie Evans, Thomas, met with Pope Francis this morning after flying out to Rome in an effort to save his son from being taken off life support.
According to LifeSiteNews, Evans said he was knocking “on the Church’s door” asking for help to save his son from being euthanized at the hands of a court order, and that he is pleading that his “voice be brought to the Holy Father.” It appears that the pope, who has been an outspoken supporter of Alfie, granted his wish.
“No sleep! No food! No tie! No care!!!” Thomas posted to Facebook alongside two photos of him with the pontiff.
“Last night I jumped on a plane and come to Vatican Rome to meet the pope 1 hour ago. ALFIE WE WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU. YOUR NOT DYING SO SO WE WONT ALLOW YOUR LIFE TO BE TAKEN.”
“YOUR HOLINESS SAVE OUR SON”
Posted by Thomas Evans on Wednesday, April 18, 2018
According to the National Catholic Register, Tom Evans delivered this powerful message to Pope Francis:
“I cannot thank you enough for allowing me the opportunity to be here in front of Your Holiness today.
Our child is sick but not dying and does not deserve to die. He is not terminally ill nor diagnosed.
We have been trying our best to find out his condition, to treat or manage it.
I am now here, in front of Your Holiness, to plead for asylum. Our hospitals in the U.K. do not want to give disabled children the chance of life and instead assisting in the death of children.
We now have realized our son’s life does not mean much to the NHS [National Health Service].
We plead to you to help our son.
Alder Hey hospital do not want to let Alfie leave the hospital unless he is dead!
Alfie is not dying, so we don’t want to take him out in the way the hospital wish us to.
We see life and potential in our son and we want to bring him here to Italy, to the Bambino Gesù, where we know he is safe and he will not be euthanized.
When Alfie shows me and his mum any sign of suffering or dying, we will enjoy every last moment with him, but Alfie has not yet shown us he is ready to go, so we continue to fight just as he shows us to.
If Your Holiness helps our child, you will be potentially saving the future for our children in the U.K., especially the disabled. We pray the problem we are facing is solved peacefully and respectfully. No child deserves this.
Especially not a child of God.
The judges in the U.K. have not told the truth about our son and his condition. They have listened to everything the hospital have said and agreed with them. But there is no real medical evidence to say Alfie will die, or that he has this form of disease.
Since Dec. 14, Alder Hey have asked us more than 100 times to remove Alfie’s ventilation, even when he came off the life support three times. Doctors in the U.K. said he would never be able to do this, but Alfie proved top experts wrong and they still pushed me and his 19 year old mum to let him die, even when he came off life support.
Alfie has been on life support, with a tube down his nose and throat, for 15 months. This is very wrong. He should be, and needs to be, on a tracheostomy. This is clinically and professionally very wrong.
We do not understand why our child amongst many more are being treated like this. We believe it is because he is disabled and the U.K. want to legalize euthanasia.
Please help us save our innocent child and give us the grace of asylum to keep our family safe and to stop all of this.
The hospital are depriving us from sleep and not allowing us to sleep with our own son we have to sit in a chair all night with him to comfort and protect him.”
This comes after the Archdiocese of Liverpool, the British city in which Alfie lives, reportedly refused to meet with the gravely sick toddler and his family because they believed them not to be professing catholics, despite a continued assertion from the Evans’ that they were, in fact, devout believers.
In response to this shocking revelation, a source close to the Vatican and to the Catholic Church in England told LifeSiteNews: “The statement from Peter Heneghan of the archdiocese of Liverpool is astounding for its blithe denial of Tom Evans’ professed Catholicism, for its lack of compassion and for the absence of anything pertaining to the Catholic faith. It might as well have been written by an ill-informed official from the local Council or NHS Trust.”
The source added: “Coupled with the conspicuous and unacceptable silence of Archbishop McMahon, we’re left to believe there’s something seriously rotten about the archdiocese of Liverpool.”
“My greatest sorrow results from not having been recognized as a child of Holy Mother Church: I am Catholic, I was baptised and confirmed and I’m looking to you as my shepherd and to the Holy Father as the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth,” Thomas Evans wrote in a letter to Liverpool’s Archbishop, Malcolm Patrick McMahon.
“That’s why I knocked on the Church’s door asking for help in order to save my son from being euthanised!”
Tom continued:
“I am aware that my son’s death is a real possibility and maybe is not a long way off. I know that heaven is waiting for him as I cannot imagine which kind of sin that innocent soul, nailed to his bed as to a cross, may have committed.
But I’m also aware that his life is precious before God’s eyes and that Alfie himself has a mission to accomplish. Perhaps his mission is to show the entire world the cruelty behind the judge’s words. For this judge stated that Alfie’s life is “futile”, thus supporting the same opinion of the hospital which wants him to die by suffocation.”
Tom explained that Alder Hey Children’s hospital intends to withdraw treatment and place Alfie on palliative care.
“They have been handing out palliative care for months and now it’s that same palliative care they want to withdraw, together with the mechanical ventilation, in order to sedate him and let him die by suffocation,” Evans noted.
“It seems to me that this is neither right nor Christian.”
“So please, Your Excellency, do accept my request for help and bring my voice to the Holy Father, so that everything possible is done to help me and Alfie’s mum Kate to take our child out of Great Britain to be cured until the natural end of his earthly existence.”
Yesterday, Alfie’s legal representatives, the Christian Legal Centre, filed paperwork with the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, urging the court to rule that the parents be given the power to decide when to take their son off his ventilator. Alfie suffers from a degenerative neurological disease that is causing his brain matter to waste away.
Faithwire spoke to the CLC’s Roger Kiska to get an update on the current situation.
“Habeas corpus liberty cannot be set aside by a judge’s view that it is in Alfie’s interest to die now,” Mr. Kiska told Faithwire Tuesday. The Habeas Corpus Act 1679 was an Act of the UK Parliament that requires the courts to examine the “lawfulness of a prisoner’s detention and thus prevent unlawful or arbitrary imprisonment.”
Mr. Kiska explained to Faithwire that Alfie’s parents should not be prevented from moving their son to another treatment facility.
“Kate and Tom, Alfie’s parents, do not accept that it is in his best interests to have his life ended by a judge’s ruling; they should be free to take him to a hospital that is ready and willing to treat him. Alfie should also be able to access the treatment being offered abroad.
Amid the tumultuous and emotional legal battle, the Christian Legal Centre called on believers to pray for a positive decision from the Supreme Court.
“We ask for your readers to pray for sustained strength for Tom and Kate, as well as Alfie, who has shown the same tenacity and fighting spirit his parents have exhibited throughout this ordeal,” Mr. Kiska told Faithwire. “And finally we ask for your readers to pray that the Supreme Court recognize the preciousness of this young boy’s life.”
Yesterday, the Supreme Court confirmed it had received Alfie’s case, issuing a statement on the mattter:
“The parents of Alfie Evans filed their application to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom earlier this afternoon. They wish to challenge the decision that Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust can withdraw artificial ventilation from their child. The application will be referred to the President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, and two other members of the Court who will form the decision panel.
The hospital and Alfie’s legal guardian (the person who provides the independent voice of the child in court) will then be asked to provide their views.
The Court is aware of the urgency of this matter.
We will provide updates as further information becomes available.”
We will keep you posted on this crucial ruling.