'Pope didn't seek euthanasia'
2007-09-16 18:12
Vatican City - Doctors assisting Pope John Paul II in his final days never suspended medical treatment and the pontiff did not ask them to do so, his personal physician said.
Pro-euthanasia activists in Italy have said the pope refused
medical treatment such as artificial respiration and feeding
because he wanted to be allowed to die.
The Catholic Church forbids euthanasia, which has been at
the centre of a heated debate in Italy in recent months.
However, the church's Catechism says medical procedures that
are "burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary or disproportionate to
the expected outcome" can be discontinued with the permission of
the patient or family.
Renato Buzzonetti, the late pope's long-time doctor, said
the pontiff's last known words, "Let me go to the house of the
father", should not be interpreted as if he had asked doctors to
stop treating him.
"That sentence was an act of very high prayer ... an almost
unique example of his attachment to the faith of the Lord and
at the same time to life, which John Paul II deeply loved until
the very last moment," Buzzonetti said in an interview with
daily La Repubblica.
"It is not true that the medical treatment of the Holy Father
was interrupted," said Buzzonetti, who was the pope's doctor for
nearly 27 years.
"He was never left alone, without monitoring and assistance,
as some people wrongly want to suggest," he said.
Pope's final days
Buzzonetti recalled the pope's final days before his death
on April 2, 2005. The details have already been made public by
the Vatican and have also been published in a book by Buzzonetti
and other aides.
The pope was hospitalised for two periods in February and
March of 2005. During his second stay, he underwent a
tracheotomy and had a tube fitted in his throat to help him
breathe.
On March 31, the ailing pope suffered septic shock caused by
an infection of the urinary tract and cardio-circulatory
collapse.
Asked why the pontiff had remained in his Vatican residence
rather than return to hospital, Buzzonetti said:
"He was explicitly asked about this by his secretary,
Stanislaw Dziwisz. But the Holy Father wanted to stay at the
Vatican, where he could in any case count on qualified and
continuous medical assistance, 24 hours a day, by highly
specialised personnel."
The pope started slipping in and out of consciousness in the
morning of April 2. Later in the day he muttered his last
comprehensible words to a nun in Polish, before entering a coma
and dying at 21:37.