The Catholic godson of an elderly Brooklyn woman on life support is fighting her Orthodox Jewish family to regain the legal right to let her die.
Sylvia Sodden, 78, grew up Orthodox Jewish in Brooklyn but converted to Roman Catholicism when she was 20 years old, says godson Joe Arrigo.
Sodden’s sister Esther Feigenbaum filed a successful emergency lawsuit Sunday to take over the proxy held by Arrigo, blocking him from pulling the plug on her sister – who her family maintains never converted to Catholicism.
“Arrigo is acting in bad faith in ignoring Ms. Sodden’s religion’s views,” the suit states.
But Arrigo fought back, filing a motion to regain control of the proxy Wednesday insisting, “Sylvia appointed me as proxy because we have the same Roman Catholic faith and we are very close.
“Sylvia is Roman Catholic, not Orthodox Jewish … She is now near death at Coney Island Hospital and on machines, which she told me she did not want,” he said in the Brooklyn Supreme Court filing.
“According to our Jewish values, it is imperative that my sister be permitted to remain on life support and that she be permitted to live.”
The court fight hinges on whether Sodden was of sound mind when she signed the proxy form.
Religion experts said both Feigenbaum and Arrigo were acting in accordance with their respective faiths.
“If you remove a respirator and that removal will lead to the death of the patient, that is considered akin to homicide,” said Rabbi Edward Reichman, a medical doctor and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
“In Catholic moral teaching there’s not an absolute obligation to continue with life support,” said John DiCamillo, staff ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
Sodden — who her family said suffered from lifelong mental illness — went on life support in August 2013 after an infection and collapsed lung caused her difficulty breathing.
Arrigo says she is in a “vegetative state” while Feigenbaum maintains her eyelids flutter periodically.