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God Bless you Pope John Paul
Unconfirmed reports say Pope John Paul has died
Reuters news agency, citing unconfirmed Italian media reports, say Pope John Paul II, the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, has died early Friday evening in Rome.
The Vatican has not confirmed reports of the Pope's death. And Italy's Sky Italia released a report quoting Vatican sources that says the Pope's brain and heart are still functioning.
The Pope had suffered a long winter of respiratory troubles, with two rounds of hospitalization.
During his latest stay on Feb. 24, surgeons at Gemelli hospital in Rome performed a tracheotomy to ease his distress. There were reports the Pope lost 19 kilograms since then.
The Pope's final public appearance was on Wednesday, when he made a silent, surprise appearance at his apartment window, shortly before being given a nasal-gastric feeding tube.
Earlier in the day, spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Pope had received the "Holy Viaticum" communion, reserved for those near death, after a sharp downturn in his health overnight.
The ailing pontiff had told his aides he did not want to return to hospital for treatment.
The Pope was given cardio-respiratory assistance after his heart stopped Thursday afternoon. Earlier, the Vatican had said he was being treated for a high fever caused by a urinary tract infection.
Still, right up to the end of John Paul's papacy, the business of the Vatican continued, with a flurry of new appointments on Friday.
A Vatican statement said John Paul had appointed 12 new bishops and archbishops. As well, the Pope also accepted the resignation of six others.
On Friday, Navarro-Valls said the Pope celebrated Mass at dawn, and received some top aides -- contradicting earlier reports by Italian media that the Pope had fallen into a coma.
Earlier in the day, Navarro-Valls told reporters the Pope had remembered it was Friday -- a day that he traditionally reads the "Via Crucis", or the Stations of the Cross. He said the pontiff asked to be read the Holy Scriptures.
Choking back tears, Navarro-Valls said he had "never seen anything like this in the last 26 years" of the Pope's papacy.
Now that his passing has been announced, this begins the Novemdialis, a nine-day period of official mourning, during which the selection process for a new pope is set in motion.
The Vatican must hold a papal election within 15 to 18 days after a pope's death.
John Paul II, born Karol Jozef Wojtyla, served for 26 years as the spiritual leader of the world's Roman Catholics -- about 17 per cent of the world's population, according to Vatican statistics.
The first Polish-born Pope and one of the few non-Italian leaders in the modern age, Pope John Paul II began his papacy with an intensive travel schedule. He visited more than 120 countries in 25 years, and made three trips to Canada.
His personal appearances before huge crowds, and his telegenic appeal to the global TV audience, are credited with helping to rebuild the Catholic following in many parts of the world; particularly in the southern hemisphere.
In recent years, news coverage of his travels had been focused on his health. The pontiff had suffered from Parkinson's disease, debilitating knee and hip ailments, and intestinal troubles that may have been related to injuries he sustained when he was shot during a 1981 assassination attempt.
All these ailments made it difficult for him to walk. Aides wheeled the Pope around in a throne-like chair for public appearances and to celebrate public Masses, and he earned praise for his determination at such events.
Such coverage in recent years has overshadowed the triumphs of his earlier career. The Pope is credited with helping to inspire the Solidarity movement in Poland, a worker uprising that started a chain of events across eastern Europe that led to the fall of a number of communist governments.
He was outspoken in the political arena, never hesitating to criticize a host government, in his own gentle way.
In a 1998 speech in Cuba, he blamed Fidel Castro's regime for "discouraging the individual," and at the same time took aim against the excesses of capitalism.
