Around 1,500 people attended a civil funeral in Rome for Italian right-to-die campaigner Piergiorgio Welby on Sunday as Pope Benedict XVI affirmed the sanctity of human life.
The supporters, gathered at Rome's San Giovanni Bosco square, applauded the arrival of the coffin at 9:30am carrying the remains of Welby, who died on Wednesday after a doctor sedated him and removed him from a respirator. He was later to be cremated.
The funeral of the 60-year-old muscular dystrophy victim came two days after Italy's Roman Catholic Church denied Welby religious rites. The pope, in his pre-Christmas message from nearby Vatican City on Sunday, appeared to respond to the controversy.
PHOTO: EPA
"The birth of Christ helps us to be aware of what human life is worth, the value of every human life, from his first moment to his natural decline," Benedict said.
Welby's campaign has sparked a debate on euthanasia in largely Roman Catholic Italy, where aiding it is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, although patients are legally allowed to refuse care.
"I would have liked his funeral to have taken place at the church for his mother. It's a question of tradition," Welby's wife, Mina, told reporters as she attended the funeral with his mother and sister.
Still, Welby's widow said she was glad his painful struggle to die was over.
"I am happy for him, he is free," she said.
"I'll carry on his battle," she added, judging that her husband's eloquent September letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano had mobilized awareness in Italy and overseas.
"Dying frightens me," Welby wrote to Napolitano at the time, "but unfortunately what is left for me is no longer life, it's only a stubborn and senseless struggle to keep biological functions active."
Members of Italy's leftist Radical Party which embraced Welby's high-profile campaign to legalize euthanasia were also present at the ceremony.
"A person's body, for believers, belongs to God, but certainly not to the state or government," party member and External Trade Minister Emma Bonino told the crowd.
Leftist Senator Gavino Angius denounced the church's position as "incomprehensible and lacking in human pity."
"We're in the Christmas season, I don't think Jesus would have appreciated or will appreciate a gesture like that from the Vatican," Angius said in remarks published by the Ansa news agency.
Indeed, several priests came out against the Church's official stance on the funeral, including Father Antonio Mazzi who called it a "hypocritical gesture" with which the church had not "respected the pain, the suffering" of Welby.
Florentine priest Alessandro Santoro noted that "nobody high up at the Vatican lodged an objection to the religious funeral" of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
Myanmar’s junta chief met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the first time since seizing power, state media reported yesterday, the highest-level meeting with a key ally for the internationally sanctioned military leader. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021, overthrowing Myanmar’s brief experiment with democracy and plunging the nation into civil war. In the four years since, his armed forces have battled dozens of ethnic armed groups and rebel militias — some with close links to China — opposed to its rule. The conflict has seen Min Aung Hlaing draw condemnation from rights groups and pursued by the
RSS