Pope came within minutes of dying

SPECULATION increased last night that the Pope may consider resigning, as it emerged that he came within minutes of death last week.

The Vatican’s number two official, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano, appeared to distance himself from an earlier stance that the Pope would carry on in office, when he said it was a matter for the Pontiff himself to decide.

Cardinal Sodano, asked whether the Pope has thought about resigning, responded: “Let’s leave this hypothesis up to the Pope’s conscience.

“If there is a man who loves the Church more than anybody else, who is guided by the Holy Spirit, if there’s a man who has marvellous wisdom, that’s him. We must have great faith in the Pope. He knows what to do.”

Vatican observers said that since the cardinal had not closed the door on the issue and had responded to the question, it could mean top Church officials were discussing such a scenario. Popes can resign but cannot be forced to do so.

The Pope’s release from hospital was delayed by several days as a precaution. Vatican officials stressed the Pope’s condition was improving and he had spent the previous night calmly.

However, a report yesterday, in Catholic magazine Inside the Vatican, contradicted the Vatican’s official line on the Pope’s illness.

Medical staff privately told the magazine that the Pope came within minutes of death when rushed to hospital last week.

Despite gasping for breath and feeling as though he was suffocating, he twice refused to go to hospital, said medical staff.

“We caught him by a whisker,” one said. “If he had come in 10 minutes later, he would have been gone.”

The magazine report said that John Paul II’s advisers first encouraged him to go to hospital when he began having trouble breathing, but the 84-year-old pontiff “decisively shook his head.”

He sat down for dinner as normal and soon suffered a coughing attack and was gasping for breath.

But despite the best efforts of his closest aides, it was not until two hours later that the Pope finally relented, the report said.

He was rushed to hospital in the same ambulance that rescued him after an assassination attempt in May 1981.

The 10th floor of Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic is permanently reserved for the Pope in case of emergency, but in this case he was probably taken down to a basement intensive care unit with advanced life-support equipment, medical staff suggest.

The reports contradict the official word from the Vatican, where spokesmen have maintained the frail Pope suffered a bout of the flu.

Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Pope had no fever, was eating regularly and has been sitting in a chair every day for several hours.

“His doctors have advised him to stay a few more days,” Mr Navarro-Valls said.

The 10-minute appearance at an open window on Sunday gave the public its first glimpse of the pontiff since his hospitalisation.

But the delivery of his blessing created some controversy.

A piece of paper covering his face raised suspicion that the voice heard via loud-speaker was actually a recording of the Pope, a suggestion passed off as “nonsense” by the Vatican.