Vatican late Sunday, March 13, after speaking directly to the Roman Catholic faithful for the first time since he underwent throat surgery last month. Italian television interrupted its regular programming to broadcast the pictures of the pope. Earlier pilgrims saw how the 84-year-old pontiff briefly appeared at his window at Rome’s Gemelli hospital as he tried to speak a few phrases in Italian and Polish.
"Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for your visit," John Paul II said in a hoarse but reasonably clear voice, in an apparent bid to demonstrate he had recovered his powers of speech. "Have a good Sunday," he added, as an aid was holding a microphone.
TEARS
In Polish he then greeted pilgrims from his birthplace in the southern town of Wadowice, and eyewitnesses said it brought tears to their eyes. Polish Catholics held special prayer vigils for the health of the man they see as a symbol of freedom as he struggled against their former Communist regime.
"Greetings in Christ. A good Sunday and good rest of the week to everyone," he said in Italian. The Pope has been in hospital since February 24 when he underwent a tracheotomy, an operation to open an airway and relieve severe breathing problems.
Minutes after he appeared at the hospital window, the Vatican issued a surprise announcement saying the Pope would leave hospital on Sunday evening and continue his convalescence at the Vatican.
DOCTORS
"The Holy Father, in agreement with doctors treating him, will return this evening to the Vatican, where he will continue his convalescence," Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement. Hours later enthusiastic pilgrims lining up the streets of Rome saw how the frail pontiff entered a Mercedes minivan that slowly drove him to the Vatican, about 4 miles (apr. 6.5 kilometers) from the hospital.
It came after the top of the Pope’s white cassock was reporedly unbuttoned, apparently to avoid pressure on the tube. Vatican watchers claimed there has been much talk about the operation’s effect on his voice, but stressed it was clearly recognizable when he spoke Sunday, March 13. He is reportedly undergoing breathing and speech rehabilitation therapy and is believed to still have a tube in his throat to help air get to his lungs.
MESSAGE
Before his return to the Vatican, an aide for the third straight week presided at his Sunday Angelus blessing in St Peter’s Square and read a message for him, for a crowd of thousands of Catholics.
In his Angelus message read on his behalf by Archbishop Leonardo Sandri in St Peter’s Square, the Pope thanked the media for the attention they had paid to his hospitalization. "Thanks to this, the faithful throughout the world can feel me closer to them and accompany me with their affection and their prayer," he said. He stressed the media was a good means of spreading the word of God and "feeding one’s own spirit". "I am grateful to those who dedicate themselves to these new forms of evangelization which make the most of the mass media," he added.
However Vatican officials warned the pontiff may not be able to participate in most of the Holy Week services which lead up to Easter Sunday, March 27, Christianity’s most solemn holiday. For the first time in his 26-year papacy he has delegate others to carry out virtually all events during the week.
(With Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent, reports from Rome and Vatican City).
