Stronger-looking Pope asks faithful to pray for him

A stronger-sounding Pope John Paul, making a trip some faithful fear may be his last, appealed yesterday for world peace near ancient Pompeii and asked the faithful to pray for him "today and always".

The 83-year-old Pope had looked very weak and struggled to speak at some appearances last week, prompting a senior European Cardinal to say he was nearing his death. But despite fears for his health he went ahead with the Pompeii visit.

The Pope, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, had some difficulty reading opening prayers of the rosary during a visit to a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The crowd cheered him on.

When he came to the address, his voice was initially halting and he skipped some lines, but he read the final remarks strongly and clearly.

"Pray for me in this sanctuary today and always," he said. The word "always" was a clear reference to after his death, which the Pope has been speaking of more in recent months.

Overall, he appeared better, paced himself as he spoke and waved spontaneously as he was driven through a crowd of some 30,000 gathered before the shrine in the modern part of Pompeii.

On his way to the shrine he passed excavations of the city destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 and later said old Pompeii still had a message for modern society.

"These ruins can talk. They ask the decisive question of what is man's destiny," he said.

"Today, just as in the times of ancient Pompeii, it is necessary to proclaim Christ to a society that has distanced itself from Christian values and even seems to have lost its memory," he said, speaking from a flower-bedecked platform. He issued an urgent appeal for peace, saying the new millennium had already been "lashed by winds of war and etched by blood in so many regions of the world".

With the Pope's health failing in recent months, many in the crowd, including some who had staked out their position 10 hours before the arrival, expressed fears for his condition.

"I see God in the Pope and I want to see him one last time," said Caterina, a woman who had waited since midnight.

Many came because they said they would not be able to go to Rome for 10 days of celebrations centred around the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul's election on October 16.

"We are worried about him. We are worried that we may never see him again," said another woman, Giuseppina.

There are no more papal trips planned either in Italy or abroad for the time being, although the pope has been invited to several countries for next year.

At two-and-a-half hours, the trip to the shrine of the Virgin Mary, built a century ago under the shadow of the famous volcano, is one of his shortest but perhaps one of his most personally significant visit.

Soon after his election he entrusted his pontificate to the protection of the Madonna and he believes that the Virgin Mary saved his life in an assassination attempt in 1981.

In a sense, the Pope's visit to Pompeii takes his pontificate full circle because he first visited the Pompeii shrine in 1979, a year after his election.