World

Pope's Doctor: I Was Misquoted

January 4, 2001 / 9:27 AM EST / AP

The surgeon who performed Pope John Paul II's 1994 hip operation denied Thursday that he had said the pontiff was suffering from Parkinson's disease.

Gianfranco Fineschi said he was misquoted in an interview he gave to the Italian magazine Oggi.

"I was asked if the Holy Father had Parkinson's, to which I replied, `I cannot exclude that he suffers from a Parkinson's-like illness, but it is not in my field,'" Fineschi told The Associated Press on Thursday.

In Oggi, which came out on newsstands Thursday, Fineschi was quoted as giving this explanation for why the pope walks with a shuffling gait: "He does so for neurological reasons and not orthopaedic."

"The medicines which he takes to treat Parkinson's disease, which is the cause of his hand tremors, in fact, have an impact on his muscle system, reducing facial moments and forcing him to take small steps," Oggi quoted him as saying.

The pope's difficulty in walking and speaking and tremors are common symptoms of Parkinson's, but the Vatican has never confirmed that he has the disease.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, asked by the AP why the Holy See doesn't say what condition is causing the pope's symptoms, replied: "It's a question for his doctors."

The Vatican had no comment on the Oggi piece.

Navarro-Valls said a few years ago that the pope was suffering from a syndrome in a family of neurological disorders, but did not name the disease.

Fineschi told AP that he doesn't like talking about his professional relationship with the pope, but agreed to the Oggi piece because the interviewer was a priest.

"In the article there's a mixup between the questions and the answers," Fineschi said.

Oggi's editor-in-chief, Angelo Ascoli, said that the magazine would never have published something, especially on such a sensitive matter, "unless we were sure it was correct right down to the last comma."