VATICAN CITY – Pope John Paul II was able to breathe on his own Friday following emergency throat surgery, but remained under doctors’ orders not to speak for several days, the Vatican said.
Attempting to put a positive spin on the frail pope’s second medical crisis in less than a month, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said John Paul does not have pneumonia, is free of fever and spent a “tranquil” night of rest after a 30-minute tracheotomy Thursday evening.
Navarro-Valls said the 84-year-old pontiff, who also suffers from Parkinson’s disease, showed a good appetite Friday morning and ate a breakfast of 10 cookies, yogurt and coffee with milk. (Independent doctors said eating such a breakfast only 10-12 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 reporters who mobilized when the pope, unable to breathe, was rushed to Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital on Thursday. He spent nine nights in the same hospital with a similar condition earlier this month.
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 one billion Roman Catholics. In nearly 27 years on St. Peter’s throne, John Paul has prided himself as a masterful communicator who could reach out to Catholic societies from Albania to Zimbabwe and to non-Catholics as well, with a message of moral authority and religious zeal.
Several church officials contend that even a voiceless pope can 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 earlier this month. “It can be expressed very well through writing, and in any case can be expressed also with clear and significant gestures.”
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