NEWS STORY: Alert Pope Talking Again, in German and Italian

c. 2005 Religion News Service ROME _ Five days after he underwent surgery on his windpipe to ease severe breathing problems, a fully alert Pope John Paul II is speaking again in multiple languages, a Vatican official said Tuesday (March 1). “The Holy Father spoke with me in German and in Italian. He appeared very […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

ROME _ Five days after he underwent surgery on his windpipe to ease severe breathing problems, a fully alert Pope John Paul II is speaking again in multiple languages, a Vatican official said Tuesday (March 1).

“The Holy Father spoke with me in German and in Italian. He appeared very much present. He will work on the material that I delivered to him,” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said after visiting the pope in the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic hospital.


It was the first report that John Paul has spoken since Thursday (Feb. 24) night when surgeons performed a tracheotomy, making a small incision in his throat to insert a breathing tube that bypassed his swollen larynx.

The report that he was able to speak and to resume work was another indication that the pope is convalescing well from his latest medical crisis. On Sunday, he made a surprise appearance at the window of his 10th-floor hospital room to bless well-wishers below.

The 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff was hospitalized for the second time in a month on Thursday (Feb. 24) when a relapse of influenza, complicated by Parkinson’s disease, made it difficult for him to breath.

Doctors advised the pope not to speak for several days following the tracheotomy. Yet Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said on Monday that he had “begun exercises to rehabilitate” his breathing and speaking.

Ratzinger, who is prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and dean of the College of Cardinals, said he was “happy to see that the Holy Father is fully present mentally and also capable of saying essential things in his own words.”

The German prelate told reporters that at his frequent meetings with the pope they speak “normally in German.” Describing their conversation on Tuesday, he said, they didn’t “enter into details” but that the pope “spoke of essential things.”

Alessandro Cuccaro _ an ear, nose and throat specialist at the Santa Lucia Institute of Science in Rome _ told the Italian news agency ANSA that John Paul’s ability to speak will be largely determined by his return to normal breathing.


Rehabilitation consists of closing the breathing tube for increasingly long periods of time while the patient tries to breathe normally and to enunciate vowel sounds, Cuccaro said. He said recovery proceeds gradually in small steps.

The pope’s case is complicated by Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative neurological complaint that has affected his vocal chords and weakened his control of his tongue, throat and chest muscles. It also increases the risk of a lung infection.

Once rehabilitation is complete, the breathing tube usually is removed, Cuccaro said. He said this is a “simple and not painful” operation that can be done on an out-patient basis.

The Vatican canceled John Paul’s weekly general audience scheduled for Wednesday (March 2). Last week, he spoke to some 12,000 pilgrims in the Paul VI Audience Hall by video-conference from his study in the Apostolic Palace.

A group of 55 pilgrims from the northern city of Olsztyn in the pope’s native Poland arrived at the hospital on Tuesday with a gift of honey to cure his throat. The pope’s Polish secretary, Archbishop Stanislao Dziwisz, assured his fellow Poles that, “The pope is well.”

After paying an early morning visit to the pope on Tuesday, Navarro-Valls said, “Everything is normal. The Holy Father is preparing to celebrate the Mass.” The spokesman said he has scheduled his next medical bulletin for Thursday (March 3).


MO/JL END RNS

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