Frail Pope Says He Will Serve To The End 'Like Jesus'.

DEFYING the painfully obvious symptoms of his decline, the Pope rallied his failing strength yesterday to denounce the “horror and despair” into which the Holy Land had plunged and call for an end to “this spiral of hatred, revenge and abuse of power”.

The 81-year-old pontiff, who may shortly have to enter hospital for a knee operation, has told close advisers that he is aware of pressure on him to step down because of his collapsing health, but said that he was refusing to do so “because Christ did not descend from the Cross”.

Summoning his formidable will power to lead Easter Mass and make his traditional Urbi et Orbi (To the City and the World) address the Pope, his face contorted in pain, pleaded for peace in the Middle East. “This is truly a great tragedy,” he said, his voice at times clear, but otherwise quavering and often slurred. “No political or religious leader can remain silent or inactive.”

An emergency medical team stood by discreetly as the Pope spoke, with an ambulance at the Vatican gates.

The Pope has had to take a back seat for most of the Holy Week celebrations, handing the celebration of Masses to senior cardinals in the race to succeed him, including Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State, and Camillo Ruini, the Vicar of Rome.

The Pope is receiving heavy medication to counteract the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease, and suffers from persistent knee pain caused by arthritis. Vatican officials said that he had refused to use a special electric wheelchair delivered to the Vatican at the end of February.

Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, 87, said that he saw no shame in a “wheelchair-bound Pope”, since in earlier times Popes had often used a sedan chair when they became old and frail. Yesterday the Pope used a temporary altar in St Peter’s because he was unable to negotiate the steps leading to the main altar.

Alfredo Carfagni, a leading Rome surgeon, said that he had been contacted by the Vatican about performing knee surgery on the Pope.

The pontiff, hailed as “God’s athlete” for his sporting prowess when he was elected at the age of 58 in 1978, had emergency surgery when he was shot in the abdomen in 1981 by a Turkish gunman, and has since undergone operations for a dislocated shoulder, a broken femur and the removal of a benign tumour. Professor Carfagni, of the San Carlo di Nancy hospital near the Vatican, said that knee surgery might prove unnecessary “if there is a miracle, for which we all hope”.

Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estévez of Chile yesterday revealed that when the Pope had been asked why he “continued his mission despite the condition of his health” he had said that he had to carry on just as Christ had refused to “come down from the Cross”.

Cardinal Medina, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Divine Cult and the Sacraments, said that although no Pope had stepped down voluntarily since Celestine V at the end of the 13th century, Church canon law did provide for papal abdication “if the Pope is no longer able to carry out his functions”.

Cardinal Medina said, however, that Pope John Paul II had a “select team” to help him and they had enabled him to “preside” at Palm Sunday and Good Friday ceremonies by sitting nearby on the papal throne, On Good Friday the Pope failed for the first time in his papacy to carry the Cross even part of the way around the Stations of the Cross during the candelit Via Crucis ceremony inside the Colosseum, although he did hold the cross at the last station. He appeared exhausted yesterday after holding a three-hour Mass on Saturday night.

The Pope, who turns 82 next month, is still insisting on a full programme of foreign travel this year, with trips to Bulgaria in May and Canada and Mexico in the summer.

At the weekend he passed a new milestone as his papacy became the sixth longest. “When he spoke on Good Friday of the shadows of the evening, everyone knew he was referring to himself,” La Repubblica said.

In his message yesterday, delivered under a sunny sky to tens of thousands packed into a flower-filled St Peter’s Square, the Pope referred to the “tragic sequence of atrocities and killings which steep the Holy Land in blood . . . it is as if war has been declared on peace. Nothing is resolved through reprisals and retaliation”. He read Easter greetings in 62 languages, including Hebrew and Arabic.

Thank you for your patience in dealing with this. I really, REALLY admire not only your educated responses, but your kindness.

I have a question: Berned said: "Now watch, as the Temple gets rebuilt against all odds."

Am I correct in assuming that Jesus Christ is the Third Temple? ("Tear down this Temple, and in three days I will rebuild it?") If that is the case, then wouldn't the FINAL Sacrifice have been made on the Cross, and wouldn't that, by extrapolation, mean that the building in Jerusalem is not only not necessary, but that it will NOT to be rebuilt in God's plan?

Interesting post in 81! This is also a fascinating aspect to JPII's "take" on Christianity:

Read how Pope JPII says Muslims are "saved" because they believe in one God!!!

This is especially amazing because the Koran SPECIFICALLY TEACHES that Jesus DID NOT EVEN DIE ON THE CROSS!!! Here is the verse, straight out of the Koran:

The Women [4.157] And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Jesus) and most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure.

If you don't believe that Christ died on the Cross, you have no remission of sins and can't go to heaven. But Pope JPII says Muslims who are taught in the Koran to DISBELIEVE the Crucifixion, are "saved"??????????

This Holy Week I was amazed to see so much hate hurled at Catholics on FR. It was why I joined up. Some of you know I am leaving the Episcopal Church and looking for a home. After this Triduum of reading on FR I am much closer to the Roman Catholic Church than ever before. The attacks on the Catholic Church from some posters have seemed demonic to me -- even though they quote the bible at length. I want to thank each Catholic freeper who has reached out to me with kindness and encouragement. And I thank you all for the posts on FR that I have read for some time now, long before becoming a member. You all are a living testimony to what is true and loving about Jesus' Church, and you are like a living online catechism class. I have learned and am learning alot. Although I was raised as an Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian with rosary in hand -- I am overjoyed to find the fulness of what was only hinted at in my childhood. God bless you all.

The number of reverts and converts, just here mong Freepers, can be extrapolated out into the culture at large, to point out a number so staggering that it must have the anti-Catholic folks in a tizzy. They just cannot comprehend why all their ranting, insults, and proof texts do not win them converts, but drive folks home to Rome. But it does. Repeatedly.

Your post, and #'s 86, 80, 74, 68, 65 and others reminds me of the times in 1998, when the worse the revelations that came out about Clinton... the HIGHER his popularity ratings went. (That certainly had the "anti-clinton" folks in a tizzy.) :-)

What you seem to miss, is that nowhere in my posts, (or other Bible believing Protestants) do we ever "bash" Jesus, the Cross, The Holy Spirit, The Father, or The Resurrection.

Just Rome.

I'll bet you played a mean game of Hop-Scotch when you were a kid!

Then you will no doubt conceed, that when Revelation talks about Israel and the Temple etc. it is prophesying the future, (Since Israel and the Temple were destroyed in 70 AD 25 years before Revelation was written.)
I concede no such thing. You must explain to me very carefully why there were a whole host of prophets before Christ... but only one (John) after Christ. Did Jesus forget to tell us something when he was here? Why have there been no further prophets? Was John really a prophet or was he an inspired man?

Therefore, I hope you will agree that it was GOD, not puny mortal men at the UN, that brought Israel back to the land in 1948, so that the prophesies in Revelationcould be fulfilled (which is the will of God).

I do not agree. Was it God? Or was it men who (perhaps thinking it may be Gods will) decided to establish physical Israel. Your argument also takes us onto new ground... If God, did indeed willfully establish Physical Israel, then we must also conclude that God willfully established the Nazi party of Germany as agents of the Holocost, and thus the "rebirth" of Israel. And where in the bible do you find God willfully creating anything evil such as the Nazi's?

How curious then, that Pius XII did NOT want this to happen! (See my note #18, with link to the story).
See my Post #23.

Since the Catholic Encyclopedia admits Revelation was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, and Revelation prophesies about a literal, physical Israel, restored to their ancient homeland, WHICH GOD GAVE TO THEM FOREVER AND EVER
The history of the Jews is one of a stiff-necked people who have determined to go their own way. Witness that even after being freed from the slavery of Egypt by the miricles of God...they still built a "golden idol." God gave them a "physical Israel" His name was Jesus. And He will rule forever and ever.

P.S.: Sorry it took so long to get back to you. The system moderator switched this thread to the religion section while I was in mid post...messed-up my system and it's taken this long to get back to you with a reply.

You must explain to me very carefully why there were a whole host of prophets before Christ... but only one (John) after Christ. Did Jesus forget to tell us something when he was here? Why have there been no further prophets? Was John really a prophet or was he an inspired man?

Why was there need for 23 books after the Gospels? Because that was God's plan. Prophet or inspired man?? Clearly a prophet. Revelation starts out with 7 letters to churches DIRECTLY from Jesus. This is the established pattern of prophets. God speaks to man... man writes down God's words for us. Also..

Rev 4:1 After these things I (John) looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things."

That's pretty much the essence of prophesy.

And where in the bible do you find God willfully creating anything evil such as the Nazi's?

Let's see... the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Romans... God definitely used the Nazis to re-birth Israel. God is Sovereign over EVERYTHING.

." God gave them a "physical Israel" His name was Jesus. And He will rule forever and ever.

This is a willful misreading of Genesis on your part. re-read my post. God tells Abraham he will give him the LAND to his seed forever. The LAND. Literal.

Great questions, by the way. Now I have a question for you and redhead... I am wildly curious...

Why do you guys not WANT God to give the Jews their ancestral homeland? Why would you not WANT the Temple to be re-built? I'm having a hard time understanding why you both seem so resistant/afraid of these things happening. Why?? If indeed, the Jews are back in their land (which they are) and their Temple is re-built (which I'm certain it will be) what skin off your noses would that be? Just curious. All of you Catholics on this thread seem deathly afraid of the Book of Revelation. Why is that?

Thanks!

Why was there need for 23 books ....This is the established pattern of prophets. God speaks to man... man writes down God's words for us.
OK...why was it necessary to "take-out" books of the bible in the KJV? Does God also erase through man?

And where in the bible do you find God willfully creating anything evil such as the Nazi's? ...
Let's see... the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Romans... God definitely used the Nazis to re-birth Israel. God is Sovereign over EVERYTHING.
I think your missing the point. God did not create the Egyptians, etc. specifically to fulfill a prophesy. Why should He? He had the power to establish an Israel that would never have become slaves. All of the Old Testament leads to one act: The Sacrifice of Christ and His Ressurrection for a people (us) who can never repay such love in kind! The rest is just semantics.

" God gave them a "physical Israel" His name was Jesus. And He will rule forever and ever."
This is a willful misreading of Genesis on your part. re-read my post. God tells Abraham he will give him the LAND to his seed forever. The LAND. Literal.
And since Abraham is the father of many nations... why give the land to those who do not believe in His Son?

Why do you guys not WANT God to give the Jews their ancestral homeland?
I don't care if the Jewish people get their ancient homeland. That's never been my point.

Why would you not WANT the Temple to be re-built?
Again! The "Temple" has been rebuilt in the person of Jesus Christ. If the Israelis choose to destroy the mosque on the site and rebuild a "building" ...that's their affair.

I'm having a hard time understanding why you both seem so resistant/afraid of these things happening. Why?? If indeed, the Jews are back in their land (which they are) and their Temple is re-built (which I'm certain it will be) what skin off your noses would that be?
Well I think I answered that...but again, all they will be doing is constructing a building, the Temple has already been built!

All of you Catholics on this thread seem deathly afraid of the Book of Revelation. Why is that?
I seriously doubt that we are afraid... Jesus the Christ has already promised us His divine kingdom. What more do we need?

It has been an interesting discussion...I'll give it that. Thank you for bringing me closer to my Catholic faith.

"Why do you guys not WANT God to give the Jews their ancestral homeland?"

Did either of us say we didn't WANT the Jews to live in their ancestral homeland? I strongly support their right to live there.

"Why would you not WANT the Temple to be re-built?"

Did either of us say we didn't WANT the temple to be rebuilt? I merely wondered something that had been on my mind for some time.

"I'm having a hard time understanding why you both seem so resistant/afraid of these things happening."

I can't answer for any other poster regarding this. I believe I answered this above. I was just WONDERING.

"If indeed, the Jews are back in their land (which they are) and their Temple is re-built (which I'm certain it will be) what skin off your noses would that be? Just curious. All of you Catholics on this thread seem deathly afraid of the Book of Revelation. Why is that?"

What?? I beg your pardon? I am not going to ask you any questions because I don't want to pursue this any further. You have come here and HIJACKED another Catholic thread, and I suppose you have cut another notch on your belt and polished your fingernails on your chest for this accomplishment. I can't speak for any of the other posters on this thread, but I will tell you this: I am not AFRAID of the Book of Revelation, any more than I'm AFRAID of Psalms or James. Get real.

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