Vatican source: Pope given last rites

Pontiff in 'serious' condition but responding to antibiotics

Thursday, March 31, 2005 Posted: 7:41 PM EST (0041 GMT)

 

LAST RITES

In the Catholic Church, the last rites began as a ritual of healing, but the emphasis shifted over time to forgiving the sins of a dying person as preparation for going to heaven.

 

The church has tried to return to the original meaning of the sacrament by emphasizing that it is not only for those who are close to death but also for anyone who is ill, by calling it the Anointing of the Sick or the Sacrament of Anointing.

 

The Anointing of the Sick is performed by a priest who applies oil blessed by a bishop to the organs of the five senses -- eyes, ears, nostrils, lips and hands -- feet, and, for men, loins, although the last step is not always followed.

 

In cases in which death might come before the ritual can be completed, the priest might anoint only the forehead.

 

VATICAN CITY (CNN) -- Pope John Paul II's condition remained "serious" early Friday, but he appeared to be responding well to antibiotic treatment for a urinary tract infection that caused him to develop a fever, a Vatican official said.

 

Thursday night, as his health deteriorated, the pontiff was given the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church, a Vatican source told CNN.

 

The sacrament does not necessarily mean that the pope is dying. Last rites -- also known as the sacrament of the sick or extreme unction -- are commonly given to people who are seriously ill as well.

 

The pope received the sacrament after he was shot by a would-be assassin in 1981.

 

The pope is suffering from a high fever caused by a urinary tract infection, the Vatican confirmed earlier Thursday -- one day after revealing he had been put on a nasal feeding tube.

 

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement released Wednesday: "To improve his calorific intake and promote an efficient recovery of his strength, nutrition via the positioning of a nasal-gastric tube has begun."

 

Medical sources at Gemelli hospital in Rome, where the pope has been hospitalized twice since February, told CNN that no provisions are being made for the pope to be readmitted for treatment.

 

The Vatican has its own medical facilities where he could be treated.

 

Video of the Vatican showed that the pope's apartments were darkened.

 

The 84-year-old pope suffers from a number of chronic illnesses, including crippling hip and knee ailments, and Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurological disorder that can make breathing difficult.

 

The pope was hospitalized from February 1 to February 10 for respiratory difficulties. He returned to the hospital for a tracheotomy February 24 and was discharged March 13.

 

Ill health forced him to miss a number of events during Holy Week.

 

On Easter Sunday, the pope tried to speak to a crowd assembled in St. Peter's Square but could not get out the words. He made the sign of the cross with his hand instead. (Full story)

 

On Monday, he skipped the post-Easter Queen of Heaven prayer for the first time in his 26-year papacy. The traditional appearance on the Monday after Easter has marked the end of the Holy Week celebrations. (Full story)

 

The pope's death, whenever it comes, will leave a "very large gap that's going to have to be filled," said Monsignor Kevin Irwin of Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

 

"His illness has given us time to prepare ourselves," he said Thursday. "On the other hand, this is going it be a very, very significant papacy to follow.

 

"This man made the papacy bigger than life," he said. "He is a man who has been an international traveler involved in many relations with other faiths."

 

Also in Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick urged Catholics and non-Catholics alike to pray for the pope.

 

"May he recover. We pray for that. May the Lord give him strength, and may he be able once again to communicate in the way he has done in the past, with such heart and such wisdom," McCarrick said. "But if this is not the Lord's will, then may he not suffer, because he is certainly going through a period of suffering now."

 

The use of a feeding tube for the pope illustrates his position on treatment for the critically ill.

 

In 2004, he wrote that doctors have a moral duty to preserve life.

 

"The administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural way of preserving life ... not a medical procedure."

 

The Vatican has criticized a Florida judge's order to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who died Thursday after nearly two weeks without food or water. (Full story)

 

CNN's Alessio Vinci contributed to this report.

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/03/31/pope1/index.html

 

Big news day today...

Whatever happens is God's Will. I just wish I got to see him and I have had the opportunity a couple of times. One time I had the opportunity to go to Rome and then Toronto for World Youth Day to see him. The man is incredible and may God keep him in His Hands.

It sounds like his condition is only going to get worse, which is sad news.

That's really sad. He's a great man and I hope he can regain his health.

That's really sad. He's a great man and I hope he can regain his health.

725806[/snapback]

 

 

he wont and at this point he is nothing but a figurehead and has been for a few years.

On the news they are saying something about his heart possibly failing.

his heart stopped...

 

ATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II suffered heart failure during treatment for a urinary tract infection and was in "very serious" condition on Friday, the Vatican said.

 

Photo

AP Photo

 

AP Photo Photo

AP Photo

Slideshow Slideshow: Pope John Paul II

 

 

 

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement that the pope, who was being treated at the Vatican, was given cardio-respiratory assistance after his heart stopped Thursday afternoon.

 

"This morning the condition of the Holy Father is very serious," the statement said.

 

However, it said that the pope had participated in a 6 a.m. Mass Friday and that the pope was "conscious, lucid, and serene."

 

The pontiff's health declined sharply after he developed a high fever Thursday brought on by the infection. His wish to remain at the Vatican was respected, Navarro-Valls said.

 

The pontiff was attended to by the Vatican medical team, and provided with "all the appropriate therapeutic provisions and cardio-respiratory assistance," the statement said.

 

The statement confirmed previous reports that the pope had received the sacrament for the sick and dying on Thursday evening.

 

At the edge of St. Peter's Square, hundreds of people gathered early Friday, concerned about the fragile pope. A few knelt on the cobblestones to pray, others wrapped blankets around themselves as they kept vigil through the night.

 

"There's nothing we can do but pray. We're all upset," said Agriculture Minister Giovanni Alemanno, who was in the crowd.

 

Formerly called the last rites, the sacrament is often misunderstood as signaling imminent death. It is performed, however, not only for patients at the point of death, but also for those who are very sick and it may be repeated.

 

The Rome daily La Repubblica reported Friday that the sacrament was administered by John Paul's closest aide, Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who serves as his private secretary. Dziwisz had given the pontiff the same sacrament on Feb. 24 just before the pope underwent a tracheotomy to insert a tube in his throat at Gemelli Polyclinic, the newspaper said.

 

According to its account, John Paul had attended Mass Thursday morning in his private chapel, then did paperwork from an armchair. Abruptly, at 6:45 p.m., John Paul turned ghostly pale and his blood pressure plummeted, the newspaper said.

 

After antibiotics were administered, the Italian news agency Apcom reported without citing any sources, John Paul's condition was "stable." ANSA, another Italian news agency, said the pope "seems to showing a first positive reaction" to antibiotic therapy.

 

At the Gemelli hospital, an emergency room chief said there were no plans to admit John Paul "at the moment," ANSA reported.

 

While the pope's condition deteriorated suddenly, the Vatican medical staff appeared confident it could handle the crisis with the sophisticated medical equipment installed for the pontiff.

 

As the crowd gathered to keep vigil near the pope, police kept them off St. Peter's Square, forcing them to congregate at the edges of the giant plaza.

 

"I was in the car and I heard on the radio about the grave condition of the pope. I immediately thought I would come to St. Peter's," said Antonio Ceresa, a Roman.

 

 

 

As news of the pope's latest health crisis swept the world, the pontiff's spokesman, Navarro-Valls told The Associated Press by telephone that "the Holy Father today was struck by a high fever caused by a confirmed infection of the urinary tract."

 

The pontiff was started on "an appropriate" course of antibiotics, Navarro-Valls said. "The medical situation is being strictly controlled by the Vatican medical team that is taking care of him."

 

Lights in the papal apartment above St. Peter's Square were on until about 11 p.m. Thursday, generally well past the papal bedtime. The light remained on in the Apostolic Palace's nursing station on the same floor as the pope's apartment.

 

A urinary infection can produce fever and a drop in blood pressure as reported in the pope, said Dr. Marc Siegel, a specialist in internal medicine at the New York University Medical Center.

 

The pope's risk of such an infection is heightened because of his age which suggests his prostate is probably enlarged debilitated and run down from the illness that recently sent him to the hospital, Siegel said.

 

Urinary infections tend to respond well to antibiotics, and "I would suspect there's a very good chance he's going to recover well," Siegel said.

 

Other physicians offered far more guarded assessments, given the pope's overall condition.

 

"His body has come to a standstill," said Dr. Zab Mosenifar, who treats elderly patients at the intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "Usually, these people go in a downhill course."

 

Mosenifar noted that the body's organs are interdependent on one another and if one system fails, it could cause a "cascade effect" of other systems shutting down.

 

Dr. Benjamin Ansell, an internist at UCLA School of Medicine, said a healthy person may recover from a high fever with no problem, but it could be devastating for those with neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, which the pope has suffered for at least a decade. Some Parkinson's patients who develop a fever may turn catatonic, Ansell said.

 

"It's not a very promising situation," Ansell said.

 

Hospitalized twice last month following two breathing crises and with a tube placed in his throat to help him breathe, John Paul has become a picture of suffering. When he appeared at his apartment window Wednesday to bless pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, he managed to utter only a rasp.

 

Later that day, the Vatican announced he had been fitted with a feeding tube in his nose to help boost his nutritional intake.

 

The use of the feeding tube illustrates a key point of Roman Catholic policy John Paul has proclaimed: It is morally necessary to give patients food and water, no matter their condition.

 

As Parkinson's disease and other ailments have left him increasingly frail, the pope has been emphasizing that the chronically ill, "prisoners of their condition ... retain their human dignity in all its fullness."

 

The Vatican's attitude to the chronically ill has been apparent in its bitter condemnation of a judge's order two weeks ago to remove a feeding tube from Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged American woman who died Thursday.

 

Vatican Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, reacting to Schiavo's death, denounced the removal of her feeding tube as "an attack against God."

 

Although different, some see parallels in the two cases.

 

Under John Paul, Vatican teaching on the final stages of life includes a firm rejection of euthanasia, insistence on treatments that help people bear ailments with dignity and encouragement of research to enhance and prolong life.

 

A 1980 Vatican document makes the distinction between "proportionate" and "disproportionate" means of prolonging life. While it gives room for refusal of some forms of aggressive medical intervention for terminally ill patients, it insists that "normal care" must not be interrupted.

 

John Paul set down exactly what that meant in a speech last year to an international conference on treatments for patients in a so-called persistent vegetative state.

 

"I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory."

 

John Paul's 26-year 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.

 

It is not clear who would be empowered to make medical decisions for an unconscious pope. The pope has no close relatives, but the Vatican has officially declined to comment whether John Paul has left written instructions.

 

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