Reply #67: Vatican: Pope John Paul II Is Near Death -- LINK...

[Career Prole]

"This evening or this night, Christ opens the door to the pope," Angelo Comastri, the pope's vicar general for Vatican City, told a crowd at St. Peter's Square, where up to 70,000 people prayed and stood vigil in the chilly night. Wrapping themselves in blankets, many tearfully gazed at John Paul's third-floor windows, where the lights remained on early Saturday.


The Vatican said Friday 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 hospitalized.


By Friday night, the pope's condition had worsened further, and he was suffering from kidney failure and shortness of breath but had not lost consciousness as of 9:30 p.m., the Vatican said.


The pope "is on the verge of death," Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican's health care office, told the Mexican television network Televisa. "I talked to the doctors and they told me there is no more hope.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&e=2&u=/ap/pope