Pope, Ill With Flu, Cancels Hometown Mass

Pope John Paul II took to his bed Tuesday after falling ill with the flu, devastating more than 1 million worshipers gathered here in his rain-drenched hometown for an outdoor Mass that was to have been the highlight of his longest visit to Poland.

It was the first time in 87 trips abroad during his two-decade pontificate that John Paul canceled appearances because of illness, and it stoked fears that “the people’s pope” may be hobbled in his quest to usher a strengthened Roman Catholic Church into the next millennium.

“I think this rain is all of Krakow crying,” lamented homemaker Natalia Nowak, who had been waiting since 5 a.m. for a glimpse of the pope from the thronged Blonie fields on Krakow’s outskirts. “Krakow wishes him good health and God’s grace.”

The 79-year-old pontiff, who is believed to have Parkinson’s disease, had looked increasingly frail as his grueling trip took him to 15 towns and cities since his visit began June 5.

Whether the pope will be able to carry out the rest of his demanding schedule remained to be seen. Decisions on his activities will be made “on a day-to-day basis,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told journalists. “I think the pope would like to keep to his commitments.”

While John Paul rested in bed at the local archbishop’s residence that was his own home for 11 years before he was named to the papacy in 1978, Mass was said by the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and the sermon prepared by the pope was read by Krakow’s archbishop, Cardinal Franciszek Macharski.

Navarro said the pope was “especially sad” that illness struck as he arrived in Krakow, where he lived from the age of 18, was ordained a priest in 1946 and served as archbishop until his election to the papacy.

John Paul also had to send regrets to those who trekked to the nearby city of Gliwice, where he was to have said evening prayers.

His flu and a fever of more than 100 degrees struck two days after the pope suffered a fall in the bathroom of his Warsaw guest quarters, causing a cut on his head that required three stitches.

The pope was being administered “anti-influenza therapy,” Navarro said, seeking to diminish fears that the pontiff was in serious health danger.

But church officials here conceded that the pope was canceling a planned Thursday visit to Poland’s most venerated place of pilgrimage, the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Czestochowa, and a one-day trip Friday to Armenia to meet with the cancer-stricken head of the Orthodox Church there, Catholicos Karekin I. Both stops had been added to the pope’s itinerary Monday.

Pilgrims from throughout Poland as well as hundreds of thousands of Krakow residents had been camped out at Blonie and along the papal route since Monday evening, when the pontiff was driven from nearby Balice airport to the archbishop’s residence in Krakow’s restored Old Town. The faithful cheered and sang outside the residence for hours, but the pope failed to appear at the window where he had greeted well-wishers during previous visits.

However, the ailing pope did appear at the window late Tuesday to wave to the crowd and offer thanks with slurred words for its prayers.