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Pope Suffers Heart Failure But Still Conscious
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul appeared close to death on Friday after heart failure and breathing problems, but was still conscious and in a stable but serious condition at midday, the Vatican said.
Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Pope had received the "Holy Viaticum" communion, reserved for those near death, after a sharp downturn in his health overnight. He told his aides he did not want to return to hospital for treatment.
The Pope's deteriorating health sparked an outpouring of emotion and anxiety among the more than one billion Roman Catholics around the world, especially in his native Poland.
"He is still conscious. At this moment the situation is stable but significantly serious conditions remain," Navarro-Valls told journalists, adding the Pontiff had celebrated Mass from his bed as dawn broke.
Navarro-Valls fought back tears and said he had never seen the Pope in such a state during his 26 years as head of the world's largest church.
"The Pope is lucid," he said. "He is extraordinarily serene even though naturally he has breathing problems."
Senior clergy indicated John Paul's life was ebbing away.
"He is fading serenely," Polish Cardinal Andrzej Maria Deskur, a close friend, was quoted as saying by Agi news agency.
Italian media reported on Friday morning that John Paul was in a coma, but the Vatican quickly dismissed that as "rubbish."
A Vatican statement earlier on Friday said the Pope had developed a high fever on Thursday evening caused by a urinary infection. "A state of septic shock and cardio-circulatory collapse set in," it said.
"Septic shock puts a phenomenal strain on the heart. Even the fittest patients need specialist care and medicine to survive," said Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation.
POLISH PRAYERS
Catholics in Poland filed into churches to pray for their country's most famous son, while small groups of faithful huddled together in the Vatican's vast St Peter's Square, gazing up at the papal apartments.
"This will be a day of unity for human beings around the world," said Elzbieta Zak, a Pole who has lived in Rome for 20 years and was praying alongside two nuns.
In churches in Krakow, Poland, where the Pope studied and served as archbishop, at least twice the usual number of faithful attended early Mass on Friday.
"I didn't sleep at all last night and I decided to come and pray again this morning before I went to work," said Teresa Ptak at St. Florian's church, where Karol Wojtyla once worked before becoming Pope.
Millions of Catholics in Asia packed churches and held vigils. "We are all very sad about his failing health," said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines, where four out of five people are Catholics.
Underscoring the somber mood, Italian political parties halted campaigning for regional elections this weekend and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi canceled all appointments.
After a pope dies, cardinals from around the world are called to Rome to chose a successor at a conclave which starts in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel 15 to 20 days after the death.
There is no favorite candidate to take over as head of the 1.1 billion-member Church, and Wojtyla himself was seen as an outsider before he was elected in October 1978.
DECLINING HEALTH
The Pope has grown steadily weaker over the past decade, worn down by debilitating Parkinson's disease. He has been seriously ill for most of the past two months and failed to recover from recent throat surgery aimed at helping him breathe.
Doctors stayed at his side through the night. Senior clergy rushed to the Vatican on Friday morning as his health worsened.
Italian media reported that the Pope's temperature leapt to around 40 C (104 F) on Thursday afternoon and his blood pressure plunged, a day after doctors had inserted a feeding tube through his nose and into his stomach to boost his fading strength.
The third-longest-serving pope in history spent 28 days in hospital in two periods in February and March after suffering breathing crises.
Once dubbed the "Great Communicator," he has been unable to speak in public since he last left hospital on March 13, with a tube to help him breathe inserted in his windpipe.
LEGACY
Images of a gaunt, pained John Paul, his body ravaged by Parkinson's and arthritis, contrast starkly to the sprightly Wojtyla who strode onto the world stage on October 16, 1978.
When the little-known cardinal from Krakow was elected Pontiff, few could have predicted that the first non-Italian pope in nearly 500 years would throw off the stiff trappings of the papacy, travel the globe and leave his mark on history.
Historians say one of his major legacies will remain his role in the fall of communism in Europe in 1989.
His orthodox line on many Church teachings, especially on sex, has won favor among many poor-country Catholics but criticism from liberal believers in developed countries for his proclamations against contraception, abortion, married priests and women clergy. (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in the Vatican City, Andrew Stern in Chicago and Wojciech Zurawski in Krakow)
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul appeared close to death on Friday after heart failure and breathing problems, but was still conscious and in a stable but serious condition at midday, the Vatican said.
Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Pope had received the "Holy Viaticum" communion, reserved for those near death, after a sharp downturn in his health overnight. He told his aides he did not want to return to hospital for treatment.
The Pope's deteriorating health sparked an outpouring of emotion and anxiety among the more than one billion Roman Catholics around the world, especially in his native Poland.
"He is still conscious. At this moment the situation is stable but significantly serious conditions remain," Navarro-Valls told journalists, adding the Pontiff had celebrated Mass from his bed as dawn broke.
Navarro-Valls fought back tears and said he had never seen the Pope in such a state during his 26 years as head of the world's largest church.
"The Pope is lucid," he said. "He is extraordinarily serene even though naturally he has breathing problems."
Senior clergy indicated John Paul's life was ebbing away.
"He is fading serenely," Polish Cardinal Andrzej Maria Deskur, a close friend, was quoted as saying by Agi news agency.
Italian media reported on Friday morning that John Paul was in a coma, but the Vatican quickly dismissed that as "rubbish."
A Vatican statement earlier on Friday said the Pope had developed a high fever on Thursday evening caused by a urinary infection. "A state of septic shock and cardio-circulatory collapse set in," it said.
"Septic shock puts a phenomenal strain on the heart. Even the fittest patients need specialist care and medicine to survive," said Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation.
POLISH PRAYERS
Catholics in Poland filed into churches to pray for their country's most famous son, while small groups of faithful huddled together in the Vatican's vast St Peter's Square, gazing up at the papal apartments.
"This will be a day of unity for human beings around the world," said Elzbieta Zak, a Pole who has lived in Rome for 20 years and was praying alongside two nuns.
In churches in Krakow, Poland, where the Pope studied and served as archbishop, at least twice the usual number of faithful attended early Mass on Friday.
"I didn't sleep at all last night and I decided to come and pray again this morning before I went to work," said Teresa Ptak at St. Florian's church, where Karol Wojtyla once worked before becoming Pope.
Millions of Catholics in Asia packed churches and held vigils. "We are all very sad about his failing health," said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines, where four out of five people are Catholics.
Underscoring the somber mood, Italian political parties halted campaigning for regional elections this weekend and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi canceled all appointments.
After a pope dies, cardinals from around the world are called to Rome to chose a successor at a conclave which starts in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel 15 to 20 days after the death.
There is no favorite candidate to take over as head of the 1.1 billion-member Church, and Wojtyla himself was seen as an outsider before he was elected in October 1978.
DECLINING HEALTH
The Pope has grown steadily weaker over the past decade, worn down by debilitating Parkinson's disease. He has been seriously ill for most of the past two months and failed to recover from recent throat surgery aimed at helping him breathe.
Doctors stayed at his side through the night. Senior clergy rushed to the Vatican on Friday morning as his health worsened.
Italian media reported that the Pope's temperature leapt to around 40 C (104 F) on Thursday afternoon and his blood pressure plunged, a day after doctors had inserted a feeding tube through his nose and into his stomach to boost his fading strength.
The third-longest-serving pope in history spent 28 days in hospital in two periods in February and March after suffering breathing crises.
Once dubbed the "Great Communicator," he has been unable to speak in public since he last left hospital on March 13, with a tube to help him breathe inserted in his windpipe.
LEGACY
Images of a gaunt, pained John Paul, his body ravaged by Parkinson's and arthritis, contrast starkly to the sprightly Wojtyla who strode onto the world stage on October 16, 1978.
When the little-known cardinal from Krakow was elected Pontiff, few could have predicted that the first non-Italian pope in nearly 500 years would throw off the stiff trappings of the papacy, travel the globe and leave his mark on history.
Historians say one of his major legacies will remain his role in the fall of communism in Europe in 1989.
His orthodox line on many Church teachings, especially on sex, has won favor among many poor-country Catholics but criticism from liberal believers in developed countries for his proclamations against contraception, abortion, married priests and women clergy. (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in the Vatican City, Andrew Stern in Chicago and Wojciech Zurawski in Krakow)
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