The sad, final news is not that far off now:
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, the Vatican’s health minister, told Mexico’s Televisa dal Vaticano that the pope “is about to die.�
“I talked to the doctors and they told me there is no more hope,� the Mexican cardinal told the television channel.
Expect an unprecedented ourpouring of grief when Pope John II passes away — and analysts noting that he was one of the major political forces of the second half of the 20th Century, a religious leader who helped usher in the end of the Communist bloc.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.