Pope’s Condition ‘Critical’

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30143, 29 May 1963, Page 15

Pope’s Condition ‘Critical’

(N.ZJP.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

VATICAN CITY, May 28. ’

An official Vatican statement this afternoon said the Pope had suffered a particularly severe hemorrhage today and that his condition had become critical, British United Press reported.

A Vatican statement disclosed that he is suffering from gastric meteroplasia—an abnormal growth In the stomach, according to the Associated Press. Pope John is today said to be suffering continuing hemorrhaging and his condition is regarded as grave according to Vatican sources quoted by the Associated Press.

The sources said the 81 •year-old Pontiff’s doctors were still with him two and a half hours after they were called this morning.

Doctors maintained their anxious, night-long vigil over Pope John as Roman Catholics throughout the world offered special prayers for his recovery.

The doctors are unable to stop the hemorrhaging, the sources said. A Reuter correspondent reported that Professor Pietro Valdoni, one of Italy’s leading surgeons, was called in this morning for consultations.

Unofficial reports have said the Pope has cancer.

Weakened by a stomach illness since last November he has suffered a series of hemorrhages recently. He was examined again today by his personal doctors, Professor Antonio Gasbarrini and Professor Pier Mazzini, but reportedly failed to respond quickly to their treatment. The news that one of Italy’s most renowned surgeons. Professor A. M. Dogliotti, of Turin, last month considered

radio-active treatment but decided against it in view of the Pope's general condition, strengthened rumours that he has cancer. Vatican sources, however, say he has anaemia resulting from hemorrhages. These are being countered by coagulating drugs and blood transfusions, but there has been newspaper speculation about how strong his heart is to stand this. The Rome newspaper “Il Messaggero" said today the Pope, serene in spirit, was lying in bed in his shuttered room with an ice-bag on his stomach to -help coagulation of the blood. His private secretary was frequently reading to him

passages from “The Imitation of Christ,” the fifteenth century devotional, manual. He is in the hands of professor Antonio Gasbarrini, his personal physician, and Professor Piero Mazzoni, who keeps nightly vigils in a

specially-equipped room next to Pope John’s in the Vatican Palace. Cardinal Giovanni Urbamn, Patriarch of Venice, last night ordered “ardent and constant prayer.” Some people were alarmed when bells in St. Peter's Basilica rang a knell this morning, but it was for a canon's funeral.