REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Saturday, April 2, 2005

ROMAN Catholic gather in Vatican City, ready to elect a new pope.

Pope John Paul II was in a grave condition, the Vatican said, but added that he was lucid and spent the morning celebrating Mass and receiving top aides.

He asked one to read him the biblical account of Christ’s burial.

Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, at one point crying, said the 84-year-old Pope was “informed of the gravity of his situation” and decided to remain in his apartment overlooking St Peter’s Square.

“The Pope is still lucid, fully conscious and extraordinarily serene,’’ said Navarro-Valls.

He said the Pope remained “in very serious condition” with unstable blood pressure.

“He is fully conscious and he asked whether it was strictly necessary to go to the hospital. He has decided to remain at the Vatican,” said the spokesman.

“This is surely an image I have never seen in these 26 years,’’ said Navarro-Valls. Choking up, he walked out of the room.

The Pope suffered heart failure during treatment for a urinary tract infection, the Vatican said, but it denied an Italian news report that he was in a coma.

John Paul asked aides to read him the biblical passage describing the 14th and final stage of the Way of the Cross – the path that Christ took to his crucifixion. In that stage Christ’s body was taken down from the cross, wrapped in a linen shroud and placed in his tomb.

Navarro-Valls said the Pope followed attentively and made the sign of the cross.