Pope stumbles

last updated 8 January 2015

Lourdes, France

A frail Pope John Paul II delivered a halting two-and-a-half-hour sermon this week that many followers said sounded like a farewell. The pope paused frequently as he called on the 200,000 pilgrims at Lourdes to defend life from conception, and at one point visibly sagged and called out to his aide, “Help me.” At the shrine, where a vision of Mary is said to have appeared in the 19th century, the pope knelt and said, “I feel with emotion that I have reached the end of my pilgrimage.” Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium, who is seen as a possible papal successor, said the pope’s words could be interpreted as “his farewell to Lourdes, and maybe to his life.” The pope, 84, suffers from Parkinson’s disease, and his health has been rapidly declining.