Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and euthanasia

From Moscow:

Moscow, December 22, (Interfax) - Locum tenens Metropolitan Kirill has supported Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg, who refused to sign into law a bill legalizing euthanasia in his country, referring to the fact that it contradicts traditional Christian values.

"Your decision is an example of courage and loyalty to beliefs which inspire the majority of European residents. I believe that the protection of traditional values of peoples on the European continent will help maintain the basement of our common house," Metropolitan Kirill's letter to Grand Duke Henri posted on the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate on Monday reads.

The locum tenens pointed out that the Russian Orthodox Church supports maintaining traditional moral values all over Europe. Late Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia stated the need to protect traditional moral values in European countries for the sake of the future from the PACE rostrum last year. And this June, the Russian Orthodox Church's Archbishop Council adopted the basics of teachings of human dignity, his freedoms and rights, which deal with the fact that it is unacceptable to introduce norms "eroding or canceling both the evangelic and natural morals" to the human rights sphere.

"The legal provision of the right to euthanasia is an example of how traditional morals are destroyed," Metropolitan Kirill said.

"The legalization of euthanasia encroaches on the sacred gift of life, reverent attitude to which was nurtured in Europe's Christian culture for years," he said.

"The Russian Orthodox Church, as well as other religious communities in Europe, opposes the recognition of the right to euthanasia, which humiliates human dignity and perverts the professional duty of doctors, who are called to save not end life," the metropolitan said.

"Christians know about sufferings of those terminally ill. They pray that their sufferings are soothed and give them assistance and help. It is absolutely unacceptable to kill the afflicted and help them commit suicide," the letter reads.

According to earlier reports, Grand Duke Henri refused to sign into law a bill allowing euthanasia in Luxembourg on December 1. According to Luxembourgian laws, the grand duke can shelf bills approved by the parliament for three months but cannot veto them.

Luxembourgian MPs then almost unanimously passed a bill limiting the powers of the grand dukes and again passed the euthanasia bill, with 31 backing, 26 opposing it and three abstaining. Controversies over this bill led Luxembourg to a crisis of authorities, and this confrontation could downgrade the Luxembourgian constitutional monarchy to a mere formality. If the bill takes effect, Luxembourg could become the third EU country with legalized euthanasia after the Netherlands and Belgium.

From Rome:

(ANSA) - Vatican City, December 18 - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday urged the Luxembourg parliament not to legalise euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide, expressing deep concern for such an ''evil'' law. In accepting the credentials of Paul Ruhr, the largely-Catholic state's new ambassador to the Vatican, the German pontiff said lawmakers should always ''reaffirm the greatness and inviolable nature of human life''.

Lawmakers, doctors and families should bear in mind that ''a deliberate decision to deprive innocent humans of their lives is always evil from a moral point of view and can never be lawful''.

Luxembourg will become the third European Union country to legalisize euthanasia once revisions in the bill - which has already passed first reading - are approved.

The Netherlands did so in 2002 and Belgium followed suit in 2003. The bill, which is due to be approved later on Thursday, would allow those with incurable diseases to die if they repeatedly asked to do so and had the consent of two doctors and a panel of experts. In a new doctrinal document released last week the Vatican reiterated its condemnation of abortion, euthanasia contraception, the so-called 'morning after pill' and all uses of embryos in research.

Top Vatican officials have also recently spoken out in several controversial cases where terminally ill patients were allowed to die, sometimes by having life-sustaining therapy suspended.

Catholic doctrine states that human life must be defended from conception to natural death, hence it is unacceptable to kill embryoes or to let a terminally ill person die, even if he has requested this.

Last month the Church criticized the World Health Organization's 60-year-old definition of health, warning it could pave the way for euthanasia.

A front-page editorial in the official Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano said the widely accepted definition was dangerously broad.

WHO defines health as ''a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity''.

''If the individual makes the final decision on what constitutes illness, he may end up claiming that life itself is an illness in his personal view, resulting in the provision of structures and means to bring it to an end,'' warned the commentary, written by Carlo Bellieni.

''This is what happens in Switzerland. A study by the Fond National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique shows that 30% of assisted suicide cases do not involve someone affected by a terminal illness but individuals such as the 23-year-old Briton unable to bear a second-class existence in a wheelchair''.

The almost entirely paralysed rugby player, who travelled to Switzerland in September with his parents, is one of several right-to-die cases to draw media attention in recent months.

Italy's highest appeals court in November issued a landmark ruling that authorised doctors to switch off the life support system of a woman trapped in an irreversible coma for the past 16 years.

The Court of Cassation ruling was hailed by the woman's father who has been fighting for ten years against Catholic officials and politicians who support the Vatican's position that removing a feeding tube is tantamount to murder.

The Church has also spoken out against living wills, which allow people to specify what steps should be taken if they are no longer able to make decisions in the future. Some clarification here: The Church has warned the laity to not sign living wills that contravene the Church's teaching and to appoint a surrogate as someone who can make decisions for you should you be unable to (see this article from the NCBC).

It recently expressed the view that medical advances meant brain death should no longer be accepted as the legal definition of death.