Pope urges slow down

Pope John Paul, mid way through a mountain holiday that appears to have re-invigorated him, yesterday urged modern society to turn down the noise and listen to the sound of silence.

"In this oasis of calm, in front of this marvellous show of nature, one can easily appreciate just how fruitful silence, something which is becoming ever more rare these days, can be," he said.

The 84-year-old Pope made the comments during the only public appearance in two weeks of much-needed rest in an isolated mountain chalet near the border with France.

The chalet offers a spectacular view of Mont Blanc, at 4,807 metres, western Europe's tallest peak.

The Pope, addressing some 6,000 people who had come up to the mountain to hear his Sunday prayer, said modern society often "steals the time needed to think, sometimes to the point of making people incapable of reflection and prayer".

The normal population of Les Combes when the Pope is not there is about 25. Yesterday it rose 240 fold.

He appeared in relatively good form after a week of rest in this picturesque area of green valleys, deep gorges, white-water streams and distant churches with needle steeples.

His face was a healthy red and his voice was the clearest and strongest it has been for some time.

The Pontiff, an avid mountaineer when he was a young man in his native Poland, is a pale shadow of his former robust self.

Parkinson's disease has left him shaking, sometimes uncontrollably, and severe knee arthritis has consigned the man once called "God's Athlete" to a wheeled chair.

He no longer walks in the mountains. He leaves the chalet every morning for different, secret locations, where aides pitch a canopy or tent so he can read, meditate and converse on subjects as disparate as theology to theatre.