The Vatican Press Office on Friday denied reports by an Italian daily that the Vatican's secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had spoken by telephone concerning the suspension of tube hydration and feeding to Eluana Englaro, an Italian woman who has been in a coma since 1992.Her family wish her to be allowed to die.
"We categorically deny the report published this morning, with such emphasis...concerning a supposed telephone conversation between....Tarcisio Bertone and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The news is completely unfounded", Vatican press office director Federico Lombardi said in a statement.
An emergency decree to stop the family of Eluana from assisting her death was approved by the conservative Italian government headed by Berlusconi on Friday.
However, Italian president Giorgio Napolitano declined to sign it. Without his signature, the decree cannot become law.
Eluana is currently at a private clinic called 'La Quiete' in the northeastern Italian town of Udine, where she arrived on Tuesday. Doctors then said her feeding tubes would be removed on Friday and she would be sedated to avoid her feeling any pain.
Former Italian president and lifetime senator Francesco Cossiga lauded Berlusconi's move in favour of the decree.
"As a citizen, as a Catholic, senator, former prime minister, I send a warm commendation and a sincere thank you to prime minister Berlusconi for his initiative in favour of life and against those legal assassins," said Cossiga.
However, the head of the national secretariat of the Party of Italian Communists, said the Italian government has become a 'province' of the Vatican.
"This is a Taliban government. The council of ministers and the issuing of the decree, tramples on our constitutional rights, " said Alessando Pignatiello, of the Party of Italian Communists (PDCI).
"The country has become a defacto province of the Vatican State. Having reached this point, we urge the Italian president not to sign the decree."
The issue of euthanasia is a burning one in Italy, where the Vatican and conservative politicians have criticised a landmark ruling last November by Italy's top appeals court allowing Eluana the right to die.
The court upheld a ruling in July by a lower court in Milan allowing for the removal of Eluana's feeding tubes, as requested by her father.
She has been in a coma since a 1992 car accident in the northern city of Lecco in Lombardy.
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(Source: AKI)