[RonDog]

The pope is an old man, gravely ill, exhausted by his ascesticism. He is unable to show feeling or emotion through the Parkinsonian mask that freezes his features. When I saw him walk into a room two years ago--bent, moving slowly, his left eye drooping and rimmed red--his face seemed that of a half-submerged whale looking silently at the world, a great mammal risen from the deep.

From Yahoo! News:

Pope John Paul II is improvising three verses of a Polish Easter song, as he watches a group of Polish children performing, at the end of the open-air general audience in St. Peter's square at the Vatican Wednesday, April 10, 2002. During the audience the pontiff, confiding that his own old age helps him sympathize with the difficulties of the elderly in a fast-changing world, urged society to value their experience and wisdom and not consider them a useless weight. (AP Photo/Massimo Sambucetti)

Pope John Paul II is 81 years old.

[ELS]

During the audience the pontiff, confiding that his own old age helps him sympathize with the difficulties of the elderly in a fast-changing world, urged society to value their experience and wisdom and not consider them a useless weight.

Amen! Thank you, RonDog.