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Sat Apr 2 05:56:00 PST 2005

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 Pope Edges Near Death As Faithful Pray and Wait

 By Daniel Williams

  ROME, Apr. 2 -- Pope John Paul II is slipping in and out of consciousness, the Vatican spokesman said Saturday. 

 "We cannot speak of a coma technically," said spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls at a morning briefing for reporters. "From this dawn, the conscious state has been seen to be compromised." 

 Navarro-Valls said that mass was said in the pope's apartment Saturday morning, but unlike descriptions of the pope's activities provided Friday, there was no mention of the pope participating in the rite or making requests or tracing the sign of the cross. 

 The spokesman, who had previously described John Paul as "lucid," acknowledged that the pope was barely able to communicate. He said visitors to the papal apartment inside the Vatican's Apostolic Palace had "reconstructed" words spoken by the pope, which were addressed to young people, apparently specifically to those young people who have been gathering in the square beneath the pope's Vatican apartments.

 The pope said, "'I've tried. You've come to me and I want to thank you.'"

 Otherwise, Navarro-Valls said, the pope's condition is "basically unchanged." 

 Such were the Vatican's first words after a long night's vigil.

 Pope John Paul II remained on the edge of death, his breathing shallow and his kidneys and circulation failing as millions of Roman Catholics around the world left their homes and workplaces to light candles and pray for him.

 Friday, from his bed in his Vatican apartment, he had listened to a reading of the story of Jesus's crucifixion, made the sign of the cross repeatedly and co-celebrated a Mass, according to an emotional Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman. The pontiff, 84, was "lucid, fully aware, and, I must say, very serene," Navarro-Valls said.

 With ominous bulletins and special services, the church had begun preparing the world for the death of its leader of 26 years. "This evening or this night, Christ flings open the doors to the pope," Archbishop Angelo Comastri, the pope's vicar general for Vatican City, told a crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square beneath the window of the pope's illuminated apartment.

 The pope's assistant as bishop of Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, celebrated a special evening Mass Friday at St. John Lateran Basilica, the pope's own diocesan church. "We pray for him," Ruini said of the pontiff, "as we, like him, trust ourselves to the will of the Lord. . . . The Holy Father is seeing and touching the Lord."

 In Wadowice, Poland, where John Paul was baptized in 1920 as Karol Wojtyla, townspeople gathered at the local church to pray and wait. In countries as diverse as the Philippines, France, the United States, Peru, Congo, Australia and Thailand, the faithful came together for special vigils.

 On Thursday night, John Paul received Holy Viaticum, a special Holy Communion provided to Catholics as they near death, according to Vatican officials.

 The pope suffered heart failure and oscillating blood pressure Friday after developing a urinary tract infection Thursday, the Vatican said. Informed of the gravity of the situation, he gave instructions that he would rather remain in the Vatican than reenter Gemelli Polyclinic hospital in Rome, where he has been treated over the years for a variety of illnesses, the Vatican said.

 In February, he underwent throat surgery at Gemelli to relieve difficulty in breathing, which is a common symptom of advanced Parkinson's disease, from which he suffers. His decision Friday to stay put in his apartment was widely seen as a sign that nothing could be done to reverse his decline.

 There is a saying in Rome that a prophet does not die outside of Jerusalem and popes don't die outside the Vatican.

 "The general conditions and cardiorespiratory conditions of the Holy Father have further worsened," Navarro-Valls said in a statement. "A gradual worsening of arterial hypotension has been noted, and breathing has become shallow. The clinical picture indicates cardiocirculatory and renal insufficiency.

 "The biological parameters are notably compromised."

 Navarro-Valls provided a sometimes contradictory description of the pope's condition, saying at one point that he was "stable," but describing his blood pressure as "unstable." Vatican pronouncements have often lagged behind the deterioration of the pope's health.

 John Paul was being treated by his chief physician, Renato Buzzonetti, along with two emergency room specialists, a cardiologist, an ear, nose and throat specialist and two nurses.

 On Friday morning, the pope received visits from his chief aides, one by one. Among them were Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state; Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's senior guardian of dogma; Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the assistant secretary of state who has delivered the mute pope's messages; Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the American administrative governor of Vatican City; and Ruini.

 Ruini described the visit in a television interview: "I prayed with him for a moment, which profoundly moved me. The pope has left himself in God's hands." He called on Catholics to pray for the pope, another traditional signal of the grave state of a pontiff's health. "We want to be close to him in this hour through the same loving closeness with which John Paul II has accompanied us for nearly 27 years."

 At a news conference, Navarro-Valls's voice broke in despair on several occasions as he described the deterioration of a pope once known for his physical vigor.

 He said that "the Holy Father -- with visible participation -- is joining in the continual prayers of those assisting him. This is surely an image I have never seen in these 26 years."

 Despite his steady and alarming decline, the pope asked to observe several religious customs in his apartment, Vatican statements said.

 At 7:15 a.m. Friday, he requested the reading of the 14 Stations of the Cross, representing the steps Jesus took to death and burial in Jerusalem. "He crossed himself at the reading of each station," Navarro-Valls said. Earlier, lying in bed, he co-celebrated Mass as a rosy dawn broke in Rome.

 Cardinal Andrzej Maria Deskur, a friend of the pope and a fellow Pole, said flatly, "He is fading serenely."

 "I think he is suffering a lot. Very much," said Szoka. "He breathes with heavy labor. It's terrible."

 The Italian news agency Adnkronos, without citing sources, reported Friday evening that a brain monitor hooked to the pope had gone flat. But a senior Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that the pope was still alive and there was no such monitoring device in his apartment.

 In the middle of the distressing health news, Vatican officials announced Friday afternoon that the pope had formally accepted the resignations of six bishops, appointed 17 new bishops and archbishops and named two new Vatican ambassadors. Commentators quoted by news services and on television declined to read definitive meaning into the papal acts.

 During the day, Romans, pilgrims and tourists idled in St. Peter's Square awaiting some sign from the windows of the papal apartment. Hundreds lined up to enter St. Peter's Basilica, where John Paul made his first appearance as pope 26 years ago, the first non-Italian in the papacy in four centuries.

 Police blocked traffic into the main artery leading to the square and basilica Friday and meandered among the crowd, while reporters and television crews conversed in a Babel of languages, kept outside the huge plaza by police and metal barricades.

 The pope's last public appearance took place Wednesday, when he was wheeled up to his apartment window to bless a throng in the plaza. He was unable to speak coherently, but made the sign of the cross with his right hand. On Easter, he spent 12 minutes at the window, sometimes writhing in apparent agony and twisting his mouth as if trying to scream.

 In Washington, press secretary Scott McClellan said the White House was in close contact with the Vatican about the pope's failing health. Chief of Staff Andrew Card was keeping President Bush up to date on the pope's condition. "The president and Mrs. Bush join people all across the world who are praying for the Holy Father. He's in our thoughts and prayers," McClellan told reporters.

 Bush has met John Paul twice at the Vatican.

 "The outpouring of love across the world is a testimony to the greatness of the pope," McClellan said. "The pope is an inspiration to millions of Americans and people all over the world for his great moral leadership."

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