Pope speaks briefly before returning to the Vatican

WITH thousands cheering him on, Pope John Paul II returned to the Vatican yesterday, two weeks after undergoing throat surgery to ease his breathing problems and hours after greeting pilgrims in a raspy voice that raised hopes he would fully recover.

The 84-year-old pope, who had an operation to insert a breathing tube in his windpipe, crossed himself just before he left Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic in a Mercedes minivan with tinted windows rather than in the glass-panelled ‘pope mobile’ he used after a spell in hospital last month.

The pope returned to his apartment overlooking St Peter’s Square on Sunday after reassuring the world’s Roman Catholic faithful that he is recovering from his latest health crisis.

The pope, whose recovery and speaking difficulties have been hampered by Parkinson’s disease, has been getting breathing and speech therapy since his tracheotomy. His spokesman said last week that nothing was being done for John Paul at the hospital that could not be handled at the Vatican.

The Vatican did not say whether the tube in his throat was removed or replaced with a smaller version designed to help him speak.