On Easter Rounds, Pope a Mix of Frailty, Stamina : Religion: Worry about his health gives way to thoughts of how he is steering church toward its third millennium.

It was an old man who shuffled onto the main balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday to wish the world a happy Easter in 57 languages. It was also a comeback Pope.

Climaxing his 17th Easter season as leader of 960 million Roman Catholics, Pope John Paul II demonstrated the frailty that is a legacy of age and a broken leg--and the stamina that is a hallmark of his life and his reign.

As apparent Sunday was the enduring public attraction of history’s most-traveled Pope: Tens of thousands of pilgrims braved Rome’s coldest, wettest Easter in a quarter-century to jam St. Peter’s Square for John Paul’s annual Easter speech and blessing, televised in 65 countries.

As he nears his 75th birthday, John Paul is a far cry physically from the outdoorsman elected to the papacy in 1978. But Easter Week ceremonies, including a 70-minute walk around the Colosseum in cold rain Friday night, underlined that the Pope is a lot healthier than he seemed late last year.

Vatican insiders who were combing the roster of cardinals for potential successors just a few months ago now focus less on papal health than on content: They foresee an intransigent, dogmatically demanding Pope as John Paul maneuvers his church toward its third millennium.

Revisiting a favorite theme Sunday for his Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) message, John Paul quoted his recent encyclical on life issues in which he reaffirmed teachings against abortion, euthanasia and artificial birth control.

The spirit of the crucified Christ, whose Resurrection Christians mark at Easter, urges everyone, the Pope said, “to work with perseverance and courage so that our time, marked by all too many signs of death, may at last witness the establishment of a new culture of life, the fruit of the culture of truth and of love.”

Speaking from the balcony in an embroidered white robe topped by his tall papal miter, John Paul prayed for “victims of hatred and violence, as in Algeria, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Burundi and in southern Sudan.”

“To those who await in suffering the recognition of their deepest aspirations, such as the Palestinians, the Kurds or, among others, the native peoples of Latin America, the church proposes dialogue as the only path able to promote just and fair solutions,” he said.

The winter-like weather drove John Paul’s 90-minute Easter Mass inside the basilica from its usual home on the steps of the giant church.

Inside, the Pope celebrated Sunday’s Mass from the same central altar where he had presided at a three-hour Easter vigil service Saturday night. The vigil ended at midnight with a Mass in which the Pope hailed Christ’s Resurrection in Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago as “the final victory of life over death.”

John Paul’s limp is pronounced, and he carries a short black cane. Italian television directors, as if embarrassed, find other pictures to show when he walks on anything except flat surfaces; aides help him with stairs.

Still, the Pope was as strong-voiced at Sunday’s Mass as he was delivering his English-language blessing from the balcony: “A blessed Easter in the joy of Jesus Christ, the risen Lord and savior of the world,” John Paul said in language number three of 57.

The Pope, who will turn 75 on May 18, broke the femur in his right leg in a bathroom fall last April. His recovery from bone-replacement surgery has proved much slower and far less complete than doctors had forecast.

In September, the Pope walked with great difficulty and obvious pain on a visit to Croatia. His color was bad; he seemed listless, fading. American cardinals were so concerned that they informally suggested that international specialists be summoned to confer with the Pope’s doctors. The idea was rejected.

By November, the pontiff seemed somewhat better, waving his cane on a trip to Sicily almost as a gesture of defiance.

In January, John Paul carried off an exhausting 10-day trip to the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia and Sri Lanka without a misstep. He came back exhausted, but, except for the stubborn limp and the occasional grimace as he walks, he seems to have recovered his strength since.

This year, John Paul has scheduled trips to the Czech Republic in May; to Belgium in June; to Slovakia in July; to Africa in September, and to the United Nations, New York, Newark, N.J., and Baltimore in October.

Aides were pleased with the Pope’s stamina in a series of Holy Week ceremonies that began with an outdoor Palm Sunday Mass last week in St. Peter’s Square. Pilgrims waved bits of palm and olive branches as John Paul limped through the ceremony.

Friday night, in the most strenuous of his Holy Week appearances, John Paul struggled through a half-mile, 14-stop Stations of the Cross ceremony.

For the first time in the annual ceremony, John Paul had help in carrying a black balsa-wood cross around ruins of the ancient stadium. Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the sharing of John Paul’s burden highlighted the ecumenical nature of the ceremony and should not be seen as any new evidence of concern for the Pope’s health.