Pope Breaks After Heavy Holy Week Work...04/25/00
By Franses D'Emilio  

VATICAN CITY  - Pushed by a heavy Holy Week schedule, Pope John Paul II is giving himself two brief vacations between more public events involving thousands of pilgrims.

The Vatican said he would take a helicopter later Monday to the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the Alban Hills southeast of Rome.

With Holy Year pilgrims from all over the world in Rome, the pontiff will come back to the Vatican for a few hours Wednesday to keep up his tradition of public audiences on that day.

Then it's back to the hills for more rest before returning Friday. On Saturday, John Paul resumes his grueling schedule of packed private audiences. On Sunday, he will welcome thousands of fellow Poles to a ceremony for the canonization of a 20th-century Polish nun, Faustina Kowalska.

John Paul appeared for only a few minutes at noon Monday at his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square to give his blessing to a few thousand well-wishers who stood below cheering and waving handkerchiefs and flags.

At one point he stumbled over a word and skipped an entire paragraph of the brief text. The ailing pontiff appeared tired and almost impatient to leave the window.

He often loves to banter with crowds, switching from one language to another and another. But on the official Italian holiday of "little Easter," he spoke only in Spanish and his native Polish, then finished up in Italian with a "Happy Easter to Romans and pilgrims!"

The pope kept his left hand gripped tightly on the lectern. The hand and his head suffer from frequent tremors, and his speech is often slurred, all characteristics of Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurological disorder.

On Easter, the pope made a nearly two-hour-long appearance in the square after only a few hours of rest following a Saturday night vigil service, also outdoors.

Friday night, he led a half-mile-long procession at the Colosseum to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus. He also kept to past practices of hearing confessions from the public and washing the feet of priests in a Holy Thursday practice stressing humility.

Difficulty in walking since hip surgery a few years ago compounds the pope's physical problems.