The national furor surrounding the Theresa Schiavo tragedy will no doubt rage for a few days but will eventually die down. The rest of the world has regarded this battle over one woman’s life as proof that we are religious extremists. I, however, have never been prouder to be an American.

I was delighted to read in the Staten Island Advance about the exploits of one of my parish priests, Father Peter West of Priests for Life, who resides at Immaculate Conception Church in Stapleton, S.I. He was banned for six months from the Florida state capitol after he interrupted legislative meetings on behalf of Terri Schiavo. Father West, who’s a great guy we’ve had over for barbecue – and who is not a fanatic – was simply trying to urge the legislators to consider her case. When he was told it was inappropriate for him to interrupt the proceedings, and his microphone had been turned off, he shouted out: “It’s appropriate to save a woman’s life.”

“It’s something that a priest is called to do: Speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves,” Father West said.

No matter on what side of the issue they stood, most Americans felt deep sympathy for the families involved. But it took a column Friday by Denis Boyles in the National Review Online to remind me what the meaning of an individual’s life is here, as opposed to its worth in a more secular society.

In France two summers ago, 15,000 elderly and disabled people died of neglect during a heat wave. President Chirac and other government officials stayed away on holiday. Mr. Chirac issued a national statement of sympathy and promised changes, but nothing was done to prevent it from happening again.

Mr. Boyles wrote: “Chirac’s grand plan? If you are old and infirm and at the edge of death and French, do not go to an understaffed, overheated hospital. Instead, go to the movies, where it’s air-conditioned. The last I read, more than a year and a half after the event there are still unidentified bodies of grandmothers and grandfathers stuffed into the morgues of Paris.”

Deaths of that magnitude would never be treated so cavalierly in this country, where life is still considered precious. The Schiavo case has instigated a lot of debate on issues such as the right to die, euthanasia, and living wills. That is a good thing. Who wants to be the next Terri Schiavo, with families and spouses battling over one’s care?

The very first job I had was a summer job at a nursing home on West 86th Street. I was just 17, yet I matured quite a bit in those two months, caring for the abandoned elderly – half of whom were worse off than Terri Schiavo.

There was one patient I’ll never forget. Her name was Mrs. Israel, and she had a private room, which was decorated with her personal effects from home. Her family visited her every day. She suffered from severe ulcers on her legs and required constant medical care. Otherwise, I’m sure, she would have been at home, surrounded by a loving family.

Several of the ambulatory patients were not as fortunate as Mrs. Israel. They were lonely, they wandered the hallways, and some were quite mad. I never saw any visitors for those poor souls while I was on duty. They might as well have been in France.

The European community regards Americans as unsophisticated and overly prone to undue influence by the right. In Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper, the Daily Take was: “Essentially, Schiavo’s family managed to get America’s increasingly influential religious right to push her case under the noses of Congress and onto the radar of the nation’s born-again Christian president.”

The simple truth is that the vast majority of Americans, on the right and the left, care deeply about life. We erect a wall in Washington for the 58,000 soldiers who died in Vietnam, while Vietnam lost 2 million citizens, and many of them in the South had their graves plowed over deliberately by the victorious North.

I may not like to be reminded of the death toll of our soldiers at war in the Middle East, but I think it is absolutely vital that we never take that rising statistic lightly.

A tsunami in Asia killed hundreds of thousands of human beings, and Americans from every part of the political spectrum rushed to the aid of the stricken communities.

The more than 2,500 lives lost here on September 11, 2001, changed our lives and our country. Six times as many deaths changed nothing in France.

Strangers gathered in large numbers to mourn the fate of one helpless disabled woman and wept.

May we never change.