ROME, April 1 -- Pope John Paul II was in very serious condition Friday after suffering heart failure while undergoing treatment for a urinary tract infection, Vatican officals said.
"This morning, the condition of the Holy Father is very grave," said spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. He said the pope was "lucid and conscious" and had expressed a desire to remain in his Apostolic Palace apartment in Vatican City. "His wish has been respected," Navarro-Valls said.
Nuns pray in front of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, where the pope was fighting a new medical problem.
(Max Rossi -- Reuters)
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The pope received the Anointing of the Infir, a rite also known widely as Last Rites or Holy Unction. The anointing with oil is done both for patients near death, but also for those who are seriously ill.
As word spread in Rome, pilgrims and well-wishers flocked to St. Peter’s Square, where they were kept behind a barrier beneath the pope’s residence. Police blocked traffic into the main artery leading to the square and St. Peter’s Basilica.
Thursday's setback followed severe throat problems that have impeded the pope's eating and breathing.
The Vatican announcement was issued after Apcom, an Italian news agency, reported the fever. The pope's temperature spiked about 6:45 p.m., the agency said, which was about four hours before the Vatican issued its statement. Apcom also reported that John Paul's blood pressure had dropped precipitously.
Early Friday, the agency reported that his condition was "stable."
"The Holy Father during the day was struck with a high fever provoked by a confirmed infection of the urinary tract," Navarro-Valls said in a statement Thursday. The statement said the pope was being treated with "an appropriate antibiotic therapy" but made no mention of a blood-pressure crisis.
Vatican officials summoned doctors from Gemelli Polyclinic hospital to the pope's apartment, church officials said. It was unclear whether they were there to treat him or prepare him for a trip back to the medical complex in Rome, where John Paul has been treated twice this year. Italian newspapers had reported Thursday that Gemelli physicians wanted him transferred to the hospital.
According to Navarro-Valls, the pope's treatment is in the hands of Vatican doctors. His apartment is equipped with medical equipment.
On Wednesday, Vatican officials announced that the pope's doctors ran a plastic tube through the pontiff's nose into his stomach so he could be nourished with liquid formula. On Feb. 24, John Paul underwent surgery at Gemelli to open a hole in his throat so a tube could be placed directly into his windpipe to aid breathing.
Throat problems are typical symptoms of advanced Parkinson's disease, an incurable neurological disorder that progressively stops muscles from working properly and makes it difficult for the victim to swallow, breathe or clear air passages. The pope can neither walk nor speak.
The Vatican has insisted that John Paul has been regaining strength after contracting the flu in early February. The latest crisis, involving infection, raises the question of whether the methods used to provide air and nourishment to the pope might irritate the delicate passages of his throat and cause infections there. The pope has suffered recently from frequent coughing fits. He has also lost a noticeable amount of weight.
The urinary infection might result from bladder muscle paralysis, said Michele Gallucci, a urologist in Rome. In that case, if antibiotics do not work, "it might be necessary to insert a catheter to clear any obstruction" that impedes urination, he said.
For the first time this week, a high-ranking church official said on Thursday that the pope was facing death. "He is approaching, as far as a person can tell, the end of his life," Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna, told an Austrian news agency during a visit to Jerusalem.
Other leading prelates have limited their comments to praise for the pope's determination and his example of fighting for life while continuing his mission as head of the Roman Catholic Church. A few dissidents have said that the pope's decline, marked by periodic televised appearances at his apartment window, has become an inhumane spectacle.
The pope's use of breathing and feeding tubes coincides with intense debate in the United States over Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman who died on Thursday, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed by court order. Failure of motor functions had made her unable to swallow for 15 years.
Unlike Schiavo before her death, the pope is reported to be alert. Church teachings insist that "normal care" must not be interrupted, even in terminal cases, and the pope himself has offered some guidelines. He said at a conference of physicians and ethicists last year that provision of food and water was "morally obligatory," even in a case such as Schiavo's in which the patient has been declared to be in a permanent vegetative state.
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