c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) John Paul II’s heartbeat and breathing have improved since the 84-year-old pontiff was hospitalized with the flu on Tuesday.

Still, as doctors tended to the pope, the concerns over his overall health highlighted a tender spot in church rules of governance: the lack of a clear policy on who should lead if a pope becomes incapacitated.

Church officials have not indicated John Paul is unable to govern. Though Vatican cardinals and archbishops have played increasingly active roles in recent years as his health has declined due to Parkinson’s disease and hip and knee ailments, he has given approval to appointments of new bishops, held many meetings and audiences, and appeared publicly, most recently on Sunday.

But his long history of physical problems _ from a would-be assassin’s bullet in 1981 to an intestinal tumor removed in 1992 and multiple operations _ leads many church observers to worry about what would happen if he became too sick to communicate, yet remained alive and technically in charge of the church.

The church’s canon law includes provisions for popes to retire or resign, as long as such actions are voluntary and made clear. And a detailed process exists for electing a new pope.

But it’s unclear what would happen if the Holy See became “entirely impeded,” as the canon law books call it when a pope is incapacitated or unable to lead.

“This may be hard for Americans to believe, but there aren’t really rules or procedures for this,” said William Portier, who teaches Catholic theology at the University of Dayton, a Catholic university.

The central piece of canon law on the issue, known as Canon 335, says that when the Holy See is “entirely impeded,” “nothing is to be altered in the governance of the universal church” unless special laws are passed allowing such actions.

But no such special laws have been adopted.

“The Code of Canon Law is expecting somewhere that special laws will be written to say what do we do if this happens,” Portier said. “… But as far as we know, there is no answer.”

If John Paul became unable to lead, his most highly trusted cardinals and archbishops _ among them Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope’s personal secretary _ likely would increase their management of the Vatican’s day-to-day operations.

Cardinal James Francis Stafford, the former archbishop of Denver who now heads a Vatican tribunal that grants absolutions and dispensations, said in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica that the Vatican is still functioning as the pope recuperates.

Stafford said that Sodano, No. 2 in the Vatican hierarchy, is standing in for the pope on a day-to-day business.

“If I had a problem I would go to Cardinal Sodano,” Stafford said. “I have always found him open and available.”

But only the pope can exercise supreme authority in pastoral matters.

Assistants cannot implement initiatives, settlements to disagreements or changes to church doctrine unless the pope recovered and they could consult him, canon law experts say.

“The problem comes when there’s a need to change policy or do new things in new circumstances. Then you’ve got to go to the top man,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, author of “Inside the Vatican” and editor of America, a Jesuit magazine. “Whenever there’s disagreements, people need to be able to go to the pope and argue both sides.”

“If the pope can’t govern and can’t resign, then we’ve got a serious problem,” Reese continued, “because we have no process for dealing with it. In the U.S., we have the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which deals with that exact problem in the presidency. The Catholic Church doesn’t have that.”

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This lack of clear rules could be paralyzing, said the Rev. Kenneth Lasch, a canon lawyer and retired priest.

“Everybody knows the pope doesn’t run the church on his own,” Lasch said, “but … he sets the tone like any other state leader. He’s an initiator and innovator of policy, either to maintain existing policy or engage the people in reflections that may lead to changes in church teachings.”

Unless John Paul or a successor makes new church law to deal with incapacitated popes, the situation could occur repeatedly in the future, Reese said.

“Modern medicine can keep the body alive a lot longer than the mind is capable of functioning,” Reese said. “What do you do? This could go on for a year or more. We need some kind of a system for dealing with that, and we don’t have one right now.”

Reese has publicly suggested a solution: If a pope becomes unable to communicate for more than one month, the church’s cardinals would come to Rome and could decide, by a two-thirds vote, that he was incapable of governing. Then bishops around the world also would have a say.

“The problem is, something like that has to be set up by the pope before it can happen,” he said.

It has been rare in church history for popes to step down when unable to run the church. The most famous example was Celestine V, born Pietro di Murrone, a monk and hermit who historians say was woefully unprepared to assume St. Peter’s throne. Cardinals elected him in 1294 after he was said to have warned them to quickly elect a pope. In “The Inferno,” Dante famously assigned Celestine to hell for abdicating his papal responsibilities.

The most recent resignations came in the early 15th century, when the church’s Council of Constance persuaded at least two of three competing popes _ including Gregory XII, the only one of the three recognized by the modern Vatican as official _ to step down to end a major church schism.

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(Jeff Diamant covers religion for the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. Peggy Polk contributed to this story from Vatican City)