ROME: The Vatican's rigid opposition to euthanasia has come under fire from within its own ranks after it denied a religious funeral to a paralysed man who had asked to be removed from a life-saving respirator.The influential former archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, said on Sunday that terminally ill patients should be given the right to refuse treatments and that the doctors who assist them should be protected by law.
On December 20 a doctor in Rome unplugged the respirator that for many years had kept alive Piergiorgio Welby, who had muscular dystrophy.
Although the Vatican has agreed that protracted treatments for the terminally ill can be ended by doctors if no cure is possible, the Vicariate of Rome denied Mr Welby's family permission to hold a Catholic funeral, saying his "desire to end his life, expressed frequently and publicly, is contrary to Catholic doctrine".
In an article published on Sunday in the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore, Cardinal Martini, 79, said there were likely to be more cases like Mr Welby's and the church "should pay closer attention to the issues".
Cardinal Martini, who has Parkinson's disease, called for Italy to follow France's example and introduce legislation allowing patients to request the ending of treatments.
He said he opposed active euthanasia, where a patient requests a fatal injection, but also opposed "unreasonably obstinate" treatments that keep the terminally ill alive.
"Avoiding drawn-out therapy need not mean looking for death, but accepting that you cannot stop it," he said.
An Italian court decided in December that Mr Welby had the right to refuse therapy, but he could not exercise it because there was no law explicitly permitting it. The doctor who unplugged his respirator, Marco Riccio, is under investigation by Italian medical authorities.
Government coalition parties such as the Radical Party have defended Dr Riccio's action, while Luca Volonte, from the conservative Christian Democrat Union, called it murder.
The issue of euthanasia is regularly raised in many countries with some - most notably in Europe - more tolerant than others.
In Amsterdam on Monday, a court acquitted a man who had been charged with actively helping a woman commit suicide in June 2004, the Dutch news agency ANP reported.
The court ruled that there was sufficient doubt that Ton Vink, 53, who calls himself a suicide consultant, did supervise the woman's suicide, despite being in contact with her over most of the year before she died.