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King Jim
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It looks like the pope is in not so good condition. Please pray for him.
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 (local time). 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 yesterday, adding the Pontiff had celebrated Mass from his bed as dawn broke.
He fought back tears and said he had never seen the Pope like this in 26 years leading the world's largest church. "The Pope is lucid," he said. "He is extraordinarily serene even though naturally he has breathing problems."
One of the cardinals summoned to the dying Pope's bedside for a farewell meeting yesterday morning was his close friend Edmund Szoka, a Polish-American who is the governor of Vatican City and a former archbishop of Detroit.
"They were giving him oxygen through the nose," Szoka told CBS News. "I blessed him and he tried to make the sign of the cross... I was sad to see him suffering.
Szoka said he was having "great difficulty breathing" and was attended by three doctors, a priest and several Polish nuns.
Another cardinal close to him, Poland's Andrzej Deskur, was quoted by Agi news agency as saying: "He is fading serenely."
Father Konrad Hejmo, a close friend of the Pope who oversees Polish pilgrims to the Vatican, said: "There is certainly a worsening of his situation. The Pope has almost no contact with his surroundings."
Italian media reported yesterday 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.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"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.
Brussels Cardinal Godfried Danneels said the Pope's condition was very serious: "What I'm doing now is praying that the crossing to the other life may be painless and peaceful."
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 Rome-based Polish 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 yesterday.
"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.
In Nairobi, Kenya, bookseller Eleanora Kazadi said: "He has not given up and this gives us courage to bear our own burdens."
Underscoring the sombre mood, Italian political parties halted campaigning for regional elections this weekend and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi cancelled 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 favourite 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.
Italian media reported 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 stays in February and March.
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.
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, and proceeded to travel the globe tirelessy to preach the Gospels.
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 has won favour among poor-country Catholics but criticism from liberal believers in developed countries for his proclamations against contraception, abortion, married priests and women clergy.
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 (local time). 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 yesterday, adding the Pontiff had celebrated Mass from his bed as dawn broke.
He fought back tears and said he had never seen the Pope like this in 26 years leading the world's largest church. "The Pope is lucid," he said. "He is extraordinarily serene even though naturally he has breathing problems."
One of the cardinals summoned to the dying Pope's bedside for a farewell meeting yesterday morning was his close friend Edmund Szoka, a Polish-American who is the governor of Vatican City and a former archbishop of Detroit.
"They were giving him oxygen through the nose," Szoka told CBS News. "I blessed him and he tried to make the sign of the cross... I was sad to see him suffering.
Szoka said he was having "great difficulty breathing" and was attended by three doctors, a priest and several Polish nuns.
Another cardinal close to him, Poland's Andrzej Deskur, was quoted by Agi news agency as saying: "He is fading serenely."
Father Konrad Hejmo, a close friend of the Pope who oversees Polish pilgrims to the Vatican, said: "There is certainly a worsening of his situation. The Pope has almost no contact with his surroundings."
Italian media reported yesterday 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.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"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.
Brussels Cardinal Godfried Danneels said the Pope's condition was very serious: "What I'm doing now is praying that the crossing to the other life may be painless and peaceful."
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 Rome-based Polish 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 yesterday.
"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.
In Nairobi, Kenya, bookseller Eleanora Kazadi said: "He has not given up and this gives us courage to bear our own burdens."
Underscoring the sombre mood, Italian political parties halted campaigning for regional elections this weekend and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi cancelled 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 favourite 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.
Italian media reported 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 stays in February and March.
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.
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, and proceeded to travel the globe tirelessy to preach the Gospels.
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 has won favour among poor-country Catholics but criticism from liberal believers in developed countries for his proclamations against contraception, abortion, married priests and women clergy.
