c. 1996 Religion News Service

ROME _ A team of surgeons successfully removed Pope John Paul II’s inflamed appendix Tuesday (Oct. 8) and said there was no recurrence of a benign tumor removed in 1992. But they skirted questions about other illnesses that might be afflicting the 76-year-old pontiff.

Doctors described as”typical”the 50-minute appendectomy at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic in which the pope was sedated by general anesthesia.”Everything is completely normal,”chief surgeon Francesco Crucitti told reporters at a news conference hours after the operation. He added,”I categorically exclude that”there is any evidence of a tumor.

In 1992 doctors removed a benign tumor from the pope’s colon that was on the verge of turning malignant.

But Crucitti left unclear whether the pontiff was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, a neurological illness that some observers say may be the cause of the tremor in the pope’s left hand.”It is not my area of specialty,”he said when asked about the degenerative disease.

Last month papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, a physician, suggested that the pope may be suffering from”extrapyramidal”damage. Parkinson’s disease, which causes trembling and other muscle deterioration, is one type of extrapyramidal illness.

Despite these questions, the pope appears to be on his way toward a routine recovery from the appendectomy, which marked his sixth surgical procedure as pontiff, more than any predecessor. Doctors said the pontiff might be on his feet by Wednesday but would require at least a week of post-operative hospitalization.”It depends on his health,”Crucitti said.”Let’s not forget we have a 76-year-old man here. If the pope would rest a little more it would be a good thing.” Radiologist Corrado Colagrande said that the operation was”made a little more difficult”because scar tissue in the abdomen had to first be removed. The fibrous tissue formed following two operations in 1981 to retrieve a bullet from an assassin’s gun that had lodged in the pope’s abdomen and from the colon procedure.”After this operation he’ll surely be better, but it’s not like he’s going to turn young again,”Colagrande added.

The Vatican appeared intent on making as little as possible of the surgery.

Navarro-Valls, asked later at the Vatican if he was relieved, said,”I think there is always relief when an operation confirms a previous diagnosis.” The pope’s day began at 3 a.m., when he awoke in his 10th-floor suite and went to the custom-made chapel in an adjoining room with his prayer book to recite the rosary. At 5 a.m. the pope was joined by his personal secretary, Monsignor Stanislaw Dziwisz, for a private Mass.

After surgery by a team of six physicians, the pontiff”started to regain consciousness as he was being taken back to his room and was fully conscious when he arrived there,”Navarro-Valls said.

He said the pope asked to hear the medical bulletin, which was read to him by a nun.”He got the news just a little before you,”the papal spokesman told the press.

Crucitti said the pope then”saluted and thanked us.” John Paul has received thousands of goodwill messages since his hospitalization Sunday evening from heads of state, ordinary people and even his would-be Turkish assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca.”I’m spiritually close to you and pray for you,”Agca reportedly wrote in a telegram from his Rome jail cell.

Because the Vatican functions more as a monarchy than a democratic state, it has only vague instructions on when and how to transfer power should the pope become incapacitated. The only existing rules call on the Vatican caretaker, known as the camerlengo (chamberlain), to conduct routine administrative functions.

But there is no permitted transfer of power, and the camerlengo, who is Spanish Cardinal Martinez Somalo, would certainly defer any important decisions while the pope is briefly incapacitated.

MJP END HEILBRONNER