John Paul II was slipping towards the close of his momentous 27-year papacy last night, his breathing shallow and his heart and kidneys close to failing.
Tens of thousands flocked into St Peter’s Square below the twin lights of his Vatican apartment to pray for the 84-year-old Pope as his conditioned worsened.
The vicar general of Rome, Camillo Ruini, told a special service in Rome that the Pope ”already sees and touches the Lord”.
He said: ”He is already united with our only saviour.”
One of the most senior figures in the Vatican said the pontiff was ”now at the point of death”. Cardinal Javier Lozano, who heads the department responsible for health-related matters, told a Mexican television channel that his information came from Vatican doctors.
Earlier, the Pope’s spokesman, JoaquÃÂn Navarro-Valls, indicated his condition had deteriorated after the onset of blood poisoning as a result of a urinary tract infection he contracted on Thursday. ”The clinical picture indicates cardiocirculatory and renal insufficiency,” he said. ”His breathing has become shallow.”
Dr Navarro-Valls, who is renowned for his calmness, earlier came close to breaking down as he described watching the Pope battle for breath. ”Certainly, it is a picture I’d never before seen,” he said, as tears welled in his eyes.
John Paul’s agonised efforts to cling to life moved Roman Catholics around the world to sorrowful, reflective prayer, from St Peter’s Square to his native Poland, and from Mexico to the Philippines.
Pope John Paul II has reigned for longer than all but two pontiffs – Pius IX in the 19th century and St Peter himself. His successor will have the opportunity to make an immense impact: half the world’s population has known no other pope but the courageous, charismatic, rigidly conservative John Paul.
But he has appointed all but a handful of the cardinals who will choose his successor and that could mean the next pontiff is a man of similar outlook.
Dr Navarro-Valls said the Pope had been ”informed of the gravity of his condition” on Thursday. The Pope had decided to remain in the Vatican, where it was always expected he would choose to die.
Bishop John Magee of Cloyne in Ireland, who worked for the Pope for nine years, said: ”The fact that he has not gone back to hospital [shows] that he is serenely carrying the cross and ready to give up and to say, ‘It is finished.”’
Father Konrad Hejmo, a close friend of the Pope who looks after Polish pilgrims to the Vatican, described the pontiff as having ”almost no contact with his surroundings”.
There were numerous other signs pointing to the end. In an earlier statement, the Vatican revealed that on Thursday night the Pope had received the Viaticum, a special form of Communion which is one of the three last rites of the church. Dr Navarro-Valls said that after hearing mass early yesterday morning the Pope had asked to be read the 14 stations of the cross, which describe Christ’s final hours.
The Vatican’s disclosure that the Pope had been visited by senior prelates was also significant. Cardinal Ruini, who will make the official announcement of the Pope’s death, had an appointment in the papal chambers yesterday. So did the German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is dean of the college of cardinals, the body that will elect the successor, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and his two deputies.
The sixth visitor was a less well-known figure, Paolo Sardi, a diplomat-bishop who is the Vatican’s envoy for special missions. He is also deputy to the chamberlain, the official who oversees the central administration of the church in the period between the death of one pope and the proclamation of another.
Dr Navarro-Valls pointedly told journalists that the Vatican’s press room would be open all night.
Among those in the congregation of a special mass celebrated in the Basilica of St John Lateran were Italy’s head of state, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, and the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
Italian politicians, who face regional elections tomorrow and Monday, called off their campaigns as a sign of respect. In Britain too, Tony Blair may postpone his expected announcement of a May 5 general election for up to 24 hours if the Pope dies before Monday.
John Paul’s courage and conviction have won him wide admiration in Italy, even among those who do not share his rigidly conservative views.
Among those who gathered in St Peter’s Square earlier in the day were members of the city’s Jewish community, anxious to honour the first pontiff to preach in a synagogue. – Guardian Unlimited Â