Faithful Pray For Pope's Health

Pope John Paul II spent a restful night in the hospital, Italian news reports said Wednesday, a day after he was rushed to a hospital with breathing difficulties. The 84-year-old pontiff has been battling the flu for several days.

"I'm going home, the situation is calm," papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told reporters gathered at the hospital.

Navarro-Valls said that as he was leaving the hospital, the pope's secretary was celebrating Mass in the hospital room and John Paul was concelebrating from his bed.

The pope had "just a little fever," said Navarro-Valls, as the Vatican issued a statement saying John Paul rested for several hours overnight and tests now show his heart rate and breathing as normal.

He told Vatican radio the pope would spend "a few more days" in the hospital, but added that there is "no cause for alarm."

The pope is being treated at Gemelli Polyclinic, a Catholic teaching hospital where he has been a patient at least six times before, beginning in 1981 when he was shot by a would-be assassin.

Prayers for the pope are being said by faithful in churches around Rome.

"After we got the news we added a special prayer during our morning Mass," said Bishop Szczepan Wesoly, who said a mass at the Polish church near Piazza Venezia in the center of the city, attended by Polish nuns in black habits.

John Paul was whisked to the hospital by ambulance and was first examined in the emergency room before being taken to his hospital suite.

Navarro-Valls characterized the hurried admission to the special papal suite on the 10th floor of the hospital as "mainly precautionary" for the pope, who also suffers from Parkinson's disease.

Navarro-Valls told The Associated Press early Wednesday that the pope has the flu and acute laryngeal tracheitis - inflammation of the trachea, a breathing passage - and had a "certain difficulty in breathing." He denied Italian news reports that John Paul had a CAT scan at the hospital or that he was taken to intensive care.

In a separate statement, the Vatican also said the pope had experienced a "larynx spasm crisis."

According to CBS Early Show Medical Correspondent Dr. Emily Senay, a larynx spasms can restrict the airway, making breathing difficult and often causing the sufferer to make high-pitched wheezing noises.

Tracheitis requires hospitalization and usually a breathing tube to keep the airway clear. The spasms are likely a complication from the respiratory illness the pope has had. It is possible his Parkinson's disease, which makes muscle control difficult, made it harder for him to breathe.

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 symbolizing peace into St. Peter's Square.

Security arrangements are among the tightest in memory at the hospital, where the shutters on the windows of the pope's hospital suite are open just a crack.

Italian SKY TG24 television reports that hospital employees are being made to park away from the hospital so they won't be able to slip unauthorized persons inside as they drive into garage areas.

When he was elected pontiff in 1978, John Paul was a robust 58-year-old with an athlete's physique who was serving as archbishop of Krakow in his native Poland, where he played soccer, skied and kayaked as a youth. Less than three years later, in May 1981, he suffered his first health crisis when he was shot by a Turkish gunman in the square.

Other serious medical problems requiring hospitalization included a bowel tumor, described by doctors as benign and removed in 1992, intestinal problems which led to the 1996 removal of his appendix and a 1994 broken thigh bone, fractured in a fall in his bathroom.

The hospital suite includes a chapel, a kitchen and sleeping quarters for his longtime personal aide, Polish Bishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.

John Paul has been a patient so often at Gemelli that the hospital has been dubbed by the Italian press "The Third Vatican" - the other two are the one on St. Peter's Square and the pope's summer residence in the town of Castel Gandolfo.

Tuesday morning the Vatican announced that papal engagements including his weekly general audience on Wednesday have been canceled.

John Paul has kept a busy schedule despite experiencing difficulties with speech and movement that are typical for Parkinson's sufferers.

The last time the pope skipped an audience for illness was in September 2003, when he canceled his traditional Wednesday appointment for pilgrims and tourists because of an intestinal ailment.

Harvey said the decision to hospitalize the pope was made by close aides in his apartment complex, who include his longtime Polish secretary.

The flu has been sweeping through Italy since December. The Rome region, shivering through nighttime subfreezing temperatures in an unusual cold spell, has been among the hardest-hit. It was not known whether the pontiff had a flu shot.

When Vatican Radio asked Navarro-Valls before the news of the hospitalization if the pope felt the good wishes of people worldwide, the spokesman replied: "I think so, and as always, the Holy Father is grateful for the prayers of the faithful and of all those who love him. I think this closeness means a lot to him."