Fears ease as pope improves

VATICAN CITY -- Easing fears about Pope John Paul II's latest health crisis, the Vatican said Thursday he was improving and breathing more easily, but hinted the frail 84-year-old pontiff may have to spend up to a week in the hospital to fully recover.

Prayers and good wishes poured in from around the globe, including a hand-scribbled note from the imprisoned Turk who tried to assassinate the pope on St. Peter's Square in 1981.

John Paul has not suffered from any more throat spasms and spent a second restful night at Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic hospital, where a team of doctors was watching him carefully for any sign of complications from his flu, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin.

"The Holy Father's general and respiratory conditions show a positive evolution," it read. "The Holy Father spent a restful night."

Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls suggested the pope might spend up to a week at the clinic's heavily guarded papal suite, telling reporters: "When I've had the flu, it lasts seven days."

Italy's ANSA news agency, citing medical sources at the hospital, said the pope had a few sips of water Thursday, which would suggest his throat was more comfortable.

Vatican officials said they were considering setting up an audio hookup Sunday so the pope can make his weekly address from the hospital, rather than from his usual perch at a window overlooking St. Peter's Square.

The pope, who suffers from Parkinson's disease as well as crippling hip and knee ailments, has been in weak health for many years. But the Vatican took pains to play down the latest crisis.

"All he's got is the flu, which has become dangerous because of the Parkinson's," Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who heads the Vatican's Congregation of Bishops, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera. "But now the danger is over."

John Paul was rushed by ambulance to Gemelli late Tuesday after suffering what the Vatican called an inflamed windpipe and spasms of the larynx, which made it difficult for him to breathe.

Dr. Attilio Maseri, a leading Italian cardiologist who has treated the pontiff in the past, said John Paul had two things going for him: "exceptional cardiovascular function, guided by exceptional will power."

"If he overcomes the respiratory problems he's suffering, he'll certainly be able to go back doing what he was doing before," Maseri said.

Despite the Vatican's reassurances, apprehension among the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics triggered a fresh outpouring of prayers and good wishes.

Even Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot John Paul in a botched assassination attempt in 1981, sent a letter from prison wishing the pope "a speedy recovery." The clinic treating John Paul is the same one he was rushed to after Agca shot him in the abdomen.

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Associated Press writer Marta Falconi contributed to this story from Rome.