Faithful pray: Vatican insists ‘no cause for alarm’ as ailing Pope remains in hospital

FRAIL and laid low by flu, Pope John Paul II will spend a few more days in the hospital after being rushed there with breathing problems.

Although the Vatican insisted there was “no cause for alarm”, officials said yesterday doctors were on guard for complications.

Keeping the 84-year-old Pope in hospital will afford “many means to stay ready for any complications”, said Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican’s healthcare office.

Doctors say pneumonia can be deadly if an infection reaches the lungs. The pontiff also suffers from Parkinson’s disease and hip and knee ailments, and his inability to hold his back up straight has left his lungs and diaphragm in a crushed position.

Tests showed the Pope’s heart and respiration were normal, and he felt well enough to participate from his bed in a mass celebrated by his secretary, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.

He said John Paul was running a slight fever and would spend “a few more days” for treatment of respiratory problems at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic.

In St Peter’s Square, in John Paul’s native Poland and in many of the 129 countries the Pope has visited, the faithful paused to pray for the spiritual leader of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics.

Maria Pasnik, 46, n the Pope’s home town of Wadowice, Poland, expressed a simple, anguished wish: “I pray that we can see or hear him again.”

Dr Navarro-Valls insisted that John Paul did not lose consciousness or require the insertion of a tube into his windpipe to help him breathe and he characterised the hospital admittance as “mainly precautionary”.

The first sign of the Pope’s illness came on Sunday, when he kept clearing his throat during a 20-minute appearance at his studio window, thrown wide open on one of Rome’s most bone-chilling days in years so he could release a pair of doves into St Peter’s Square.