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Italian priest continues saying Mass as parishioner dies during service
A priest who continued saying Mass while the body of a man who died of a heart attack during the service was still on the church floor has defended himself, saying that is what he would have wanted.
Pio Letta, an 86-year-old pensioner, suffered a heart attack during the Roman Catholic Mass in the northern city of Trento this week.
When ambulance services arrived, Letta, a regular at the daily early morning Mass, was already dead and they covered his body with a white sheet.
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86-year-old Pio Letta had a fatal heart attack during the Mass The Mass was briefly suspended - but under Italian law a body cannot be moved without the permission of a judge.
As one could not be reached, the priest, Mario Peron, told stunned parishioners he had decided to resume and complete the religious service while waiting for undertakers to collect Letta's corpse.
A picture of the body covered by the sheet was published in local and national newspapers, some of which criticised the priest for not waiting until the body had been removed.
"This is what he would have wanted," the priest told the Italian news agency Ansa yesterday, the day he celebrated the funeral for Letta.
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