A doctor who treated the ailing Pope John Paul in his final days has put to rest a recurring rumor about the pontiff’s treatment:

Doctors assisting Pope John Paul II in his final days never suspended medical treatment and the pontiff did not ask them to do so, his personal physician said.

Pro-euthanasia activists in Italy have said the pope refused medical treatment such as artificial respiration and feeding because he wanted to be allowed to die.

The Catholic Church forbids euthanasia, which has been at the centre of a heated debate in Italy in recent months. However, the church’s Catechism says medical procedures that are “burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary or disproportionate to the expected outcome” can be discontinued with the permission of the patient or family.

Renato Buzzonetti, the late pope’s long-time doctor, said the pontiff’s last known words, “Let me go to the house of the father”, should not be interpreted as if he had asked doctors to stop treating him.

“That sentence was an act of very high prayer. . . an almost unique example of his attachment to the faith of the Lord and at the same time to life, which John Paul II deeply loved until the very last moment,” Buzzonetti said in an interview with daily La Repubblica.

“It is not true that the medical treatment of the Holy Father was interrupted,” said Buzzonetti, who was the pope’s doctor for nearly 27 years.