in his "last days and months of his life," reports said Friday, October 3.
"The whole world is experiencing a Pope who is sick, handicapped and dying — I don’t know how close to death he is – who is approaching the last days and months of his life," Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn told Austrian radio.
Church analysts say Cardinal Schoenborn, the Archbishop of Vienna and reportedly often spoken of as a future Pope, is the first high ranking church official to use the word "dying" in reference to the Pope’s health.
Vatican officials suggested earlier that the estimated one billion Catholics should prepare for the final days of a man who suffers of Parkinson’s disease and severe arthritis after surviving at least one assassination attempt during his 25-year papacy.
"BAD WAY"
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, an influential German prelate who heads the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was quoted as saying by German magazine Bunte that the Pope was "in a bad way".
Yet the Pope’s secretary, Monsignor Stanislaw Dziwisz, tried to play down the report saying that "many journalists who in the past have written about the Pope’s health are already in heaven," the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported.
The pontiff’s deteriorating health raised questions about his plans to carry out the beatification of the Albanian born Mother Teresa of Calcutta on October 19, and to mark the 25th anniversary of his election as Pope on October 16, 1978.
RED HATS
There is also ceremony to bestow red hats on 31 new Cardinals he appointed last month. Although experts say he could resign, John Paul II has made it clear he will not stop until his last breath, like most of his predecessors.
The last to resign was Pope Celestine V in 1294, according to Catholic records.
His papacy has been marked by his globe-trotting as Pope John Paul II visited more than 130 countries on 102 trips, traveling an estimated 1.5 million kilometres – equivalent to going round the world about 30 times.
WOULD-BE ASSASSIN
Pope John Paul’s desire for closeness with people almost led to his death. In 1981 he was shot and seriously wounded by a Mehmet al-Agca, a Turkish fanatic, in St Peter’s square. After a long recovery he visited and forgave his would-be assassin.
The church leader’s trip to Poland last year was widely seen as a final visit to his homeland, a chance to bid his people farewell. As he boarded the plane for his return journey to Rome, many Polish Catholics were seen in tears apparently convinced they would not see him again on earth.
There was a similar scenes in Slovakia in September where church officials said even very ill Catholic patients came to emotionally charged open air masses, attended by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.
"BEARING CROSS"
But the Pope’s frailty also served as an inspiration to many, including the sick. In the words of Slovak Bishop Rudolf Balaz, his visit was precious because he came with "such strain and bearing a cross."
Suffering was an important theme for the pope while in Slovakia where he beatified nun Zdenka Schelingova and Bishop Basil Hopko – Slovaks persecuted by communists in the 1950s, when Slovakia was still part of former Czechoslovakia.
Apparently realizing he was nearing the end of his life, the Pope urged Catholics in post Communist Slovakia not to abandon their Christian heritage in a rapidly changing Europe, amid Vatican efforts to make Christian values part of the European Union constitution.
Cardinal Ratzinger, who was reportedly in tears after meeting the pope this week, has called on the faithful to pray for the Pope.
