NEWS STORY: Pope Begins to Lose Consciousness, But Still Responds to People

c. 2005 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ Pope John Paul II hovered near death on Saturday (April 2), suffering from a general collapse of his heart, lungs and metabolism as he battled a high fever and lost some of his consciousness. Yet as night began to fall in Rome, the pope was still showing […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Pope John Paul II hovered near death on Saturday (April 2), suffering from a general collapse of his heart, lungs and metabolism as he battled a high fever and lost some of his consciousness.

Yet as night began to fall in Rome, the pope was still showing signs that he recognized some of those around him.


“The clinical conditions of the Holy Father remain very serious,” said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls in the second medical bulletin of the day, issued at 7 p.m. (12 p.m. EST). But the written statement said the pope still “responds correctly when members of his household address him.”

Well-wishers poured into St. Peter’s Square by the tens of thousands to sing, pray or simply stand staring at the windows of the pope’s fourth-floor apartment in the Apostolic Palace next to St. Peter’s Basilica.

As groups of young people chanted the pope’s name in the square on Friday night, John Paul tried to send them what could prove to be his last message to the world. He said that he had looked for them and now they had come to him, Navarro-Valls reported Saturday.

The spokesman made clear in a medical briefing at 11:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. EST) that the apparently inexorable decline toward death of the 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff was continuing for the third day.

“The general cardio-respiratory and metabolic conditions of the Holy Father are substantially unchanged and therefore are very serious. As of dawn this morning, the start of a compromised state of consciousness was observed,” said Navarro-Valls.

The spokesman, who has a medical degree, had reported late Friday that a urinary tract infection the pope suffered Thursday was gradually forcing his blood pressure to drop and making his breathing shallow. He said this led to “insufficiency” of John Paul’s heart, circulatory and kidney functions.

As of 9 a.m. (2 a.m. EST) Saturday, Navarro-Valls said, there were signs that John Paul was losing consciousness, and for the first time in the latest of a series of medical crises he has undergone, he was unable to concelebrate early morning Mass.


“One cannot speak of a coma, simply that one observes an initial compromise of consciousness,” the spokesman said. He said that John Paul still opened his eyes when spoken to and appeared to recognize the speaker.

Present in John Paul’s room Saturday morning were his two Polish secretaries, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz and Monsignor Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki, the three nuns who are his housekeepers and his personal physician, Renato Buzzonetti, Navarro-Valls said.

Some 60,000 Romans, pilgrims and tourists converged on St. Peter’s Square on Friday night to recite the Rosary under the lighted windows of the pope’s apartment. Thousands more came and went during the day and into the early hours of the morning.

Many of them were young people, who brought sleeping bags and maintained a candle-lit prayer vigil, singing and praying. About 100 were still in the square at dawn.

Although it was unclear whether John Paul could hear their voices, the pope was thinking of young people and tried to send them a message, his spokesman said.

“Last evening the pope probably had in mind the young people whom he has met throughout the world during his pontificate,” Navarro-Valls said. “In fact, he seemed to be referring to them when, in his words, and repeated several times, he seemed to have said the following sentence: “I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you.”


John Paul has reached out to young people during his pontificate. He instituted the celebration of a World Youth Day held every two or three years in different world capitals and had planned to travel to Cologne, Germany, to lead the 20th observances this August.

John Paul has continued to have difficulty in articulating because of the breathing tube that surgeons inserted in his throat in a tracheotomy performed on Feb. 24.

John Paul, who has been increasingly debilitated by the neurological ailment Parkinson’s disease, was rushed to Rome’s Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital on Feb. 1 with severe problems in breathing caused by the combined effects of influenza and Parkinson’s disease.

Discharged on Feb. 10, he returned on Feb. 24 for the tracheotomy.

John Paul last spoke in public on March 13, greeting pilgrims before he returned to the Vatican again. He made agonized but unsuccessful efforts to bless the pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday (March 27) and again at the midday prayer on Wednesday (March 30), where his words were an unarticulated rasp.

His current crisis worsened later on Wednesday when doctors inserted a plastic tube through his nose and into his stomach to feed him liquid nourishment and medicine. Because of difficulty swallowing, due to Parkinson’s disease, he had reportedly lost more than 40 pounds in the six weeks following his tracheotomy.

The Vatican continued to announce John Paul’s acceptance of resignations and appointments of bishops, Vatican diplomats and other high officials over whom only he has jurisdiction. Eighteen decisions were reported on Friday and five more on Saturday.


MO RNS END

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