Pope Is Breathing on His Own After Throat Surgery

Pope John Paul II was able to breathe on his own Friday after emergency throat surgery, but he was under doctors’ orders not to speak for several days, the Vatican said.

Putting a positive spin on the frail pope’s second medical crisis in less than a month, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said John Paul did not have pneumonia, was free of fever and had spent a tranquil night after his 30-minute tracheostomy Thursday evening.

Navarro-Valls said the 84-year-old pontiff, who also suffers from Parkinson’s disease, had a good appetite Friday morning and ate a breakfast of 10 cookies, yogurt and coffee with milk. (Independent doctors said eating such a breakfast just 10 to 12 hours after surgery was possible but not necessarily advisable.)

“Upon the advice of his doctors, the pope must not speak for several days, so as to favor the recovery of the functions of the larynx,” Navarro-Valls told a room full of reporters who mobilized when the pope was rushed to Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital Thursday.

The pontiff spent nine nights in the same hospital earlier this month with similar complications of the flu.

If the Polish-born pope lost his ability to speak for the long term, it would raise questions about whether he could continue to fulfill his mission as spiritual leader of the world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics. In nearly 27 years on St. Peter’s throne, John Paul has seen himself as a masterful communicator who could reach out to Catholic societies from Albania to Zimbabwe, as well as to non-Catholics, with a message of moral authority and religious zeal.

Today he is transformed, no longer a robust leader, hardly able to move -- more a symbol of what he would call compassion and the redemptive powers of suffering.

Some Catholics say the decline of John Paul has eroded the church’s influence and in a way left it rudderless.

Even before his latest illness, the pope had gradually delegated more authority to members of his inner circle, including Cardinal Angelo Sodano, No. 2 in the Vatican Curia, and doctrine watchdog Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Several church officials have contended that even a voiceless pope could make his will known and continue to lead.

“It is sufficient that one’s will be expressed, and be expressed in a clear way,” Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda told the La Stampa newspaper this month.

“It can be expressed very well through writing, and in any case can be expressed also with clear and significant gestures.”

Perhaps to underscore that point, Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman, said the pope had penned a humorous message to his doctors after anesthesia from the surgery wore off.

“What have they done to me?” he wrote, according to Navarro-Valls.

The pope added, “I am always totus tuus,” or totally yours. The words are part of a Latin motto the pope uses to profess his faith in the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus and a figure of special reverence for John Paul.

Navarro-Valls would not say when doctors plan to remove the tube that was inserted in the pope’s windpipe to help him breathe.

Doctors not involved in the pope’s treatment said that he could be in for an extended hospital stay and that the tube might be permanent.

The pope did not need a respirator to breathe after the surgery, Navarro-Valls said, denying reports to the contrary.

“It was a question of assuring adequate breathing of the patient,” he said of the operation. “The pope ... feels notable relief and does not need assistance in breathing, from a machine or otherwise ... not yesterday or last night or this morning.”

The relatively rosy picture offered by the Vatican contrasted with the mood of alarm and sadness conveyed by the banner headlines of Italian newspapers and by Catholics praying for the pope in churches and outside St. Peter’s Basilica.

“The pope is fighting for his life,” La Repubblica wrote on its front page Friday.

At the imposing 4th century San Giovanni in Laterano basilica, Rome’s main church, a smattering of Italians and tourists debated whether it was time for history’s third-longest-serving pope to step aside.

Even though he is old and fragile, “he’s still the leader of the church,” said Elena Zappalotti, 39, an insurance agent who was praying for John Paul. “He taught us a lot in the last 27 years. You can’t just forget about what he did for the world and for us.”

Her boyfriend, Davide Colombo, 40, who described himself as a non-practicing Catholic, disagreed, saying it was time for a change.

“The figure of the pope is a figure of suffering,” he said. “All we know is a pope who suffers.”

There are no provisions in canon law for an incapacitated pope, and John Paul has stated clearly that he has no intention of retiring. It is up to God to remove him from his post, he believes.

The last time a pope resigned voluntarily was more than seven centuries ago.

For years it has been rumored that the pope has written a letter of instruction, a kind of living will, for use in case of his mental incompetence, whereby he would be removed from his role. The Vatican denies that such a letter exists.

Times staff writers Thomas Maugh III in Los Angeles and Maria de Cristofaro in Rome contributed to this report.