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While his spirit remained resilient right up to the end, disease and old age have taken their toll on the Pope’s health. The last decade of the Papacy has been characterised by a struggle between the body and the spirit.
The Pope’s first major health scare was when he was shot in the stomach in 1981 in an assassination attempt. He had a tumour removed from his colon in 1992. He dislocated his shoulder in 1993 and broke his femur in 1994. Speculation that the Pope had Parkinson’s disease had been rife since 1992.
The Vatican only admitted that the Pope suffered from this irreversible disease in 2003. Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, progressive disorder of the central nervous system resulting from a loss of cells. It leaves patients unable to direct or control their movement in a normal manner.
The Pope’s health is further aggravated by painful arthritis in his legs, making it harder for him to stand without help. All these health problems have taken their toll on the Pope’s 84-year old body.
Speculation on the Pope’s imminent death has been rife for the past ten years but things took a twist for the worst in the first week of February – the Pope spent a week in hospital after falling ill with flu. He was readmitted after a relapse two weeks later and fitted with a tracheotomy to help him breath. For this procedure a surgeon makes a hole in the air passage, a tube is passed through the hole, down the throat and into the main airway at the top of the lungs.
On 27 February neurologist Dr Anthony Galea Debono told MaltaToday that the Pope’s current health condition is that “the tracheotomy is an extraordinary measure taken to maintain the Pope’s life. It is doubtful whether the tube in the Pope’s windpipe will be removed.” On that occasion Galea Debono ominously warned, “the prognosis is not likely to be favourable.”
On 5 March, the Pope developed a urinary infection, which caused fever, septic shock and then heart and circulatory failure. On Easter Sunday the Pope failed to utter the words “in the name of the Father” to the crowds gathered in Saint Peter’s Square.
The Pope’s health deteriorated rapidly on Thursday when he developed a high fever brought on by a urinary infection.
On Thursday he received the Saint Viaticum, the Catholics’ last rites for the sick and dying. On Friday cardio-circulatory collapse set in. This means the heart of the Pope is not working properly and is too weak to pump enough blood around his body without assistance.
Yet even in his last hours the Pope has managed to dominate the media airwaves, the very tool the Pope used for evangelisation. More than 70,000 people gathered in Saint Peter’s square to pay tribute to the first Pope of the global village. Other more critical voices have expressed compassion for the Pope’s condition and recoiled from the morbid media spectacle surrounding his last moments of suffering.
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