Pope showing first signs of losing consciousness, Vatican says

AP Worldstream;
Apr 02, 2005

VICTOR L. SIMPSON

Pope John Paul II’s condition remains unchanged and “very grave,” and
he began showing the first signs of losing consciousness at dawn
Saturday, the Vatican said.

The 84-year-old pope’s health has rapidly deteriorated, with his heart
and kidneys failing after he suffered a urinary tract infection.

But John Paul is not in a coma and opens his eyes when spoken to,
papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told reporters. He said the pope
was still speaking as of Friday night.

“Mass was celebrated at 7:30 this morning in the presence of the
pope,” although the pontiff did not concelebrate the rite, the
spokesman said. “Sometimes it seems as if he were resting with his
eyes closed, but when you speak to him, he opens his eyes,” he said.

When Navarro-Valls went to the papal apartment around 9:30 a.m. (0730
GMT) Saturday morning, the pope’s two secretaries, three nuns from the
papal household and his personal physician were with John Paul.

The Vatican said it would issue another update around 5:30-6
p.m. (1530-1600 GMT). It said its press office would remain open all
night for a second night.

Navarro-Valls said aides had told the pope that thousands of young
people were in St. Peter’s Square on Friday evening.

“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,'”
the spokesman said.

Italy canceled all weekend soccer games Saturday out of respect for
the pope’s plight.

A Vatican cardinal, Achille Silvestrini, said John Paul was able to
recognize him and another cardinal Saturday morning, the Italian news
agency ANSA reported.

John Paul “gave some sign of recognizing people,” Silvestrini was
quoted as saying after paying a call on the pope with Cardinal
Jean-Louis Tauran.

“His slow death throes proceed … but he is showing strong cardiac
resistance,” the Italian news agency Apcom quoted Silvestrini as
saying after visiting the pontiff Saturday morning.

“I found him relaxed, placid, serene. He was in his bed. He was
breathing without labor. He looked like he lost weight,” Silvestrini
said.

“When I and Cardinal Tauran were brought into his room by Monsignor
Stanislaw (Dziwisz), who announced us in both Italian and Polish, the
pope showed with a vibration of his face that he understood,
indicating with a movement of his eyes. He showed he was reacting,” he
added.

For a second day, the Vatican announced a series of papal appointments
including a Spanish bishop, an official of the Armenian Catholic
Church and ambassadors to El Salvador and Panama.

John Paul’s overall condition, which has rapidly deteriorated since
Thursday, remained unchanged and very serious, the Vatican said.

“The general cardio-respiratory and metabolic conditions are
substantially unvaried and therefore very grave. Since dawn this
morning there have been first signs that consciousness is being
affected,” Navarro-Valls said.

One of the pope’s closest aides, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was quoted
Saturday as saying that when he saw the pontiff on Friday morning,
John Paul was “aware that he is passing to the Lord.”

The pope “gave me the final farewell,” the news agency of the Italian
bishops conference quoted the German cardinal as saying Friday night.

Tourists and pilgrims streamed anew into St. Peter’s Square on
Saturday, and around the world, priests readied Roman Catholics for
the pope’s passing. Many expressed hope that his final hours would be
peaceful.

“Now he prepares to meet the Lord,” Cardinal Francis George said at a
Mass in Chicago on Friday. “As the portals of death open for him, as
they will for each of us … we must accompany him with our own
prayers.”

A workman in the square, declining to give his name, told The
Associated Press that crews were taking down the canopy on the steps
of St. Peter’s Basilica, which had covered an altar during Easter
Sunday Mass, because they had orders to clear the space for when the
pope’s coffin eventually is carried into the square.

In a sign of the pope’s decline, several cardinals from the United
States and Latin America said they were heading to Rome. After the
official mourning period following the death of a pope, cardinals hold
a secret vote in the Sistine Chapel to choose a successor.

The Il Secolo XIX newspaper of Genoa reported that the pope, with the
help of his private secretary Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, wrote a
note to his aides urging them not to weep for him.

“I am happy, and you should be as well,” the note reportedly
said. “Let us pray together with joy.”

However, Navarro-Valls said he couldn’t confirm the report, even after
speaking to the pope’s secretary.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican’s health care
office, told Mexico’s Televisa dal Vaticano that the pope “is about to
die.”

“I talked to the doctors and they told me there is no more hope,” the
Mexican cardinal told the television channel.

As word of his deteriorating condition spread across the globe,
special Masses celebrated the pope for transforming the Roman Catholic
Church during his 26-year papacy and for his example in fearlessly
confronting death.

Hospitalized twice last month after breathing crises, and fitted with
a breathing tube and a feeding tube, John Paul has become a picture of
suffering.

His papacy has been marked by its call to value the aged and to
respect the sick, subjects the pope has turned to as he battles
Parkinson’s disease and crippling knee and hip ailments. The pope also
survived a 1981 assassination attempt, when a Turkish gunman shot him
in the abdomen.

In Washington, the White House said U.S. President George W. Bush and
his wife were praying for the pope and that the world’s concern was “a
testimony to his greatness.”

Cardinal Marcio Francesco Pompedda, a high-ranking Vatican
administrator, visited the pope Friday morning and said he opened his
eyes and smiled.

“I understood he recognized me. It was a wonderful smile _ I’ll
remember it forever. It was a benevolent smile _ a father-like smile,”
Pompedda told RAI television. He told the Milan daily Il Giornale the
pope was lying in bed propped up by pillows, and twice tried but
failed to say something.

“There were various tubes, and an intravenous drip, but I confess that
I didn’t dwell on these details,” said Pompedda, adding that the pope
appeared to be “suffering but serene.”

John Paul’s health declined sharply Thursday when he developed a high
fever brought on by the infection. The pope suffered septic shock and
heart problems during treatment for the infection, the Vatican said.

Septic shock involves both bacteria in the blood and a consequent
over-relaxing of the blood vessels. The vessels, which are normally
narrow and taut, get floppy in reaction to the bacteria and can’t
sustain any pressure. That loss of blood pressure is catastrophic,
making the heart work hard to compensate for the collapse.

Dr. Gianni Angelini, a professor of cardiac surgery at Bristol
University in England, said the chances of an elderly person in John
Paul’s condition surviving septic shock more than 48 hours was no more
than 20 percent, “but that would be in an intensive care unit with
very aggressive treatment.”