Frail Pope ends tiring Lourdes pilgrimage

Pope John Paul, a sick man among the sick, wound up a emotional visit to the miracle shrine of Lourdes in France yesterday and struggled with iron determination to finish a sermon in order to encourage others suffering around him.

The devout crowd of about 200,000 listened to his words from a field on the banks of the Gave River in the shadow of the basilica built over the grotto where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

They cheered him like coaches for a struggling athlete when his words faltered and when he gasped for breath.

At one point he was heard to mutter softly in Polish: "Help me," and later said "I have to finish." An aide brought him some water in a white plastic cup and he finished his sermon.

After resting during the afternoon, the Pope made a final visit to the grotto for 10 minutes of silent prayer and then flew back to Rome in the early evening.

The 84-year-old Pope's illness and frailty has been very evident on this trip, the 104th of his pontificate, made even more poignant because he has been surrounded by fellow sufferers, many of them in wheelchairs and on stretchers.

Although the man once called the "great communicator" could barely get his words out, that did not diminish the meaning for the many sick people in the crowd. They saw him as an example of the triumph of the spirit over the failures of the flesh.

The Pope, once also known as "God's Athlete," is wracked by Parkinson's and severe arthritis but says he is determined to do his job to the end.

"This is the greatest day of my life," said 66-year-old Christopher Weeratunde, a Briton of Sri Lankan origin wheeled to hear Mass by Martin Casey, a 34-year-old Irish volunteer.

"I'm not here looking for a miracle. I'm here to share my faith and my suffering with the Pope. My whole purpose today is to be near him," Mr Weeratunde told Reuters.

Some six million people visit Lourdes each year and many of them pray for miracle cures as they drink holy waters that flow out of the grotto.

The Roman Catholic Church has recognised 66 cases of what it calls miraculous healings among the thousands of pilgrims who have said they left Lourdes free of their ailments.

The Pope has been a lifelong devotee of the Virgin Mary and credits her with saving his life when he was shot in a 1981 assassination attempt.

In his homily he said women had a mission to put more meaning back into a world blighted by materialism.

"This grotto also issues a special call to women. Appearing here, Mary entrusted her message to a young girl, as if to emphasise the special mission of women in our own time, tempted as it is by materialism and secularism," he said.

He said their mission was "to be in today's society a witness of those essential values which are seen only with the eyes of the heart".

Last month the Vatican issued a document defending women's rights in the workplace but saying modern feminism's fight for power and gender equality was undermining the traditional concept of the family.

The Pope drew cheers from the crowd, which had gathered under a sweltering sun, when he condemned abortion and euthanasia.

On Saturday night he slept at a residence which is usually used by sick pilgrims and is fully equipped for medical emergencies.