A sick man among the sick, Pope John Paul II struggled through Sunday mass at a French shrine that draws desperate people seeking miracle cures. The 84-year-old pontiff gasped, trembled and asked aides for help during a service that lasted more than two hours in sizzling heat.
More than 300,000 pilgrims packed a field overlooking the Lourdes grotto in the southwestern Pyrenees, where an illiterate peasant girl, St. Bernadette, said she had visions of a white-clad Virgin Mary in 1858.
Many pilgrims to Lourdes are sick, old or handicapped. In blue wheelchairs lined up on the grass, they watched as the frail pope spoke from his wheeled throne, which was perched on a red-carpeted stage and shaded by a white tent.
The pontiff–who suffers from Parkinson’s disease and crippling hip and knee problems–greeted the sick with “special affection.”
The pope delivered his opening prayers clearly and with strength, but the homily in French left him trembling and gasping for air. At one point he paused to say, “Help me,” in his native Polish.
Aides brought the pope water, and he said he wanted to continue. Though he skipped several paragraphs, he was able to deliver a final, forceful point: a condemnation of abortion, cloning and euthanasia.
“I appeal urgently to all of you, dear brothers and sisters, to do everything in your power to ensure that life, each and every life, will be respected from conception to its natural end,” he said. The pope also spoke out against materialism and secularism.
The pontiff drew cheers for those appeals–and for simply making it through his sentences. Each time he paused, applause of encouragement burst from the crowd.
Pilgrims came from all over the world, with many camping out for hours Sunday to see him. Some sat on the grass and chatted, while others read from prayer books.
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Compiled from news services and edited by Patrick Olsen (polsen@tribune.com) and Michael Morgan (mnmorgan@tribune.com)
