Pope to doctors: Respect the dying

The Pope encouraged scientists to seek new treatments

VATICAN CITY -- Pope John Paul II has urged doctors to respect the wishes of terminally-ill patients and not resort to extreme measures to prolong life.

John Paul was addressing participants from a scientific congress on gastroenterology, a branch of medicine studying diseases of the stomach and the intestines, on Saturday.

Telling the doctors that caring for patients "must take into the account not only the body but also the spirit," John Paul said it was "presumptuous" to count just on scientific technique.

"And, in this perspective, extreme measures at all costs, even with the best intentions, would be, in the end, not only useless, but not fully respectful of the patient who has reached the terminal stage," the Pope said.

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He encouraged scientists to pursue research for new treatments, but reminded them that "one cannot forget that man is a limited and mortal being."

"It's thus necessary to approach the ill with that healthy realism which avoids generating in those who suffer the illusion of medicine's omnipotence," the pontiff said.

"There are limits which can not be humanly overcome."

John Paul, 81, suffers from several ailments which have increasingly limited his activities. He has symptoms of Parkinson's disease, including a hand tremor and frequently slurred speech, and persistent knee pain led to the cancellation of several public appearances recently.

Ten years ago, the pope had surgery to remove a bowel tumour his doctors said was close to turning cancerous.

He sat through a Sunday's two-hour Palm Sunday mass, held a week before Easter Sunday, but allowed a cardinal to celebrate it.