Cardinals gather in Rome in preparation for Pope's death

This morning, tens of thousands of faithful kept a pre-dawn vigil today outside Pope John Paul II’s apartments, watching the top-floor windows for clues about his health.

The pontiff was reported near death, his heart and kidneys failing.

Around the world, priests readied Roman Catholics for the 84-year-old Pope’s passing. Many expressed hope that his final hours would be peaceful.

“Now he prepares to meet the Lord,” Cardinal Francis George said at a Mass in Chicago. “As the portals of death open for him, as they will for each of us … we must accompany him with our own prayers.”

At St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, some faithful sat on the cobblestones or bowed their heads as they prayed. Wrapped in blankets, many tearfully gazed at John Paul’s top-floor windows, where lights remained on early today.

The praying crowd, which peaked at about 70,000, was so silent at one point that the sound of the square’s trickling fountains was audible. At other points, the crowd sang: “Stay with us!”

“This evening or this night, Christ opens the door to the pope,” Angelo Comastri, the pontiff’s vicar general for Vatican City, told pilgrims.

Crowds thinned today as dawn approached. One group spent a 10-hour vigil sitting in a circle and singing until late into the night.

“We want to be as close as possible to him in his last, difficult moments,” said Andrea Desantis, 36.

Newspapers in Italy devoted most of today’s editions to the suffering of the Polish Pope, whose given name is Karol Wojtyla. Il Tempo showed a photo of the white-clad pontiff with his back turned to the camera, with the headline, “Ciao, Karol.”

The Il Secolo XIX newspaper of Genoa reported that the pope, with the help of his private secretary Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, wrote a note to his aides urging them not to weep for him.

“I am happy, and you should be as well,” the note reportedly said. “Let us pray together with joy.”

The Vatican said yesterday morning that John Paul was in ”very grave” condition after suffering blood poisoning from a urinary tract infection the previous night, but that he was “fully conscious and extraordinarily serene” and declined to be admitted to hospital.

By last night, the Pope’s condition had worsened further, and he was suffering from kidney failure and shortness of breath but had not lost consciousness, the Vatican said.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican’s health care office, told Mexico’s Televisa dal Vaticano that the Pope “is about to die”.

“I talked to the doctors and they told me there is no more hope,” the Mexican cardinal told the television channel.

As word of his condition spread across the globe, special Masses celebrated the Pope for transforming the Roman Catholic Church during his 26-year papacy and for his example in fearlessly confronting death.

In Wadowice, Poland, where the Pope was born, people left school and work early and headed to church to pray for their native son.

“I want him to get better because I want him to come to Wadowice again,” said Rafal Jakubowski, a 12-year-old schoolboy.

In the Philippines, tears streamed down the face of Linda Nicol as she and her husband asked God to grant John Paul ”a longer life”.

Cardinal William Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland, said he planned to go to Rome on Monday. Asked if he was surprised by the pope’s rapid deterioration, Keeler said he was somewhat caught off guard “because he has pulled through so many times in the past”.

Rushed to hospital twice last month after breathing crises, and fitted with a breathing tube and a feeding tube, John Paul has become a picture of suffering. His papacy has been marked by its call to value the aged and to respect the sick, subjects the Pope has turned to as he battles Parkinson’s disease and crippling knee and hip ailments.

The Pope also survived a 1981 assassination attempt, when a Turkish gunman shot him in the abdomen.

The White House said US President George Bush and his wife were praying for the Pope and that the world’s concern was ”a testimony to his greatness.”

Cardinal Marcio Francesco Pompedda, a high-ranking Vatican administrator, visited the Pope yesterday morning and said he opened his eyes and smiled.

“I understood he recognised me. It was a wonderful smile – I’ll remember it forever. It was a benevolent smile – a father-like smile,” Pompedda told RAI television.

John Paul’s health declined sharply on Thursday when he developed a high fever brought on by the infection. The pope suffered septic shock and heart problems during treatment for the infection, the Vatican said.

Septic shock involves both bacteria in the blood and a consequent over-relaxing of the blood vessels. The vessels, which are normally narrow and taut, get floppy in reaction to the bacteria and can’t sustain any pressure. That loss of blood pressure is catastrophic, making the heart work hard to compensate for the collapse.

“The chances of an elderly person in this condition with septic shock surviving 24 to 48 hours are slim – about 10 to 20%, but that would be in an intensive care unit with very aggressive treatment,” said Dr Gianni Angelini, a professor of cardiac surgery at Bristol University in England.

On Friday morning, John Paul participated in Mass and received some top aides at his bedside, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.

John Paul asked aides to read him the biblical passage describing the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross, the path that Christ took to his Crucifixion and burial. The Pope followed attentively and made the sign of the cross, Navarro-Valls told reporters.

John Paul also asked that scripture of the so-called ”Third Hour” be read to him. The passage is significant because according to tradition, Christ died at three o’clock in the afternoon.

“This is surely an image I have never seen in these 26 years,” the usually unflappable Navarro-Valls said.

Choking up, he walked out of the room.