Pope said consciousfollowing heart failure

Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II has lost consciousness and is suffering a further deterioration of his heart and kidney function, but the Vatican denies reports that he has died.

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Italy's Sky Italia satellite television broadcaster quoted Vatican sources saying the pontiff's brain and heart still are functioning.

The Holy See said earlier today his breathing "has become shallow."

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope's Vicar for Rome, told a congregation including Italian government officials and diplomats the pope's faith "is so strong and so full ... that he is already seeing and touching the Lord."

The pope is at his apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square where thousands have converged in a prayer vigil.

John Paul's vicar general for Vatican City, Angelo Comastri, told the crowd at St. Peter's, "This evening or this night, Christ opens the door to the pope."

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls reported the 84-year-old pontiff suffered heart failure, after going into "septic shock" during treatment for a urinary tract infection. His blood pressure is unstable and he is having difficulty breathing.

"The pope is still lucid, fully conscious and extraordinarily serene," Navarro-Valls told reporters at a press conference.

According to Navarro-Valls, the pope was "informed of the gravity of his situation" but declined to be transferred to Rome's Gemelli clinic where he has been hospitalized twice over the past two months.

John Paul is being attended to by the Vatican medical team, and provided with "all the appropriate therapeutic provisions and cardio-respiratory assistance," according to Navarro-Valls.

Last night, the pontiff received the sacrament for the sick and dying, formerly called the last rites. The Rome daily La Repubblica reported the sacrament was administered by the pontiff's closest aide, Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who serves as his private secretary.

"It was the last wish of Pope John Paul II: to not die ... in the entrance hall of a hospital, but to end his days in dignity as a Roman pontiff, in his room overlooking St. Peter's," the newspaper reported.

John Paul celebrated Mass in his bed at daybreak and then summoned his top aides for visits, including his vicar for Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini.

Agence-France Presse reports Ruini painted a picture of the pope, who has long suffered from Parkinson's disease, serenely awaiting death.

"I found him profoundly serene and lucid," he said. "I prayed with him only for a moment which moved me profoundly. The pope is completely abandoned to the will of God."

Edmund Szoka, a Polish-American who is the governor of Vatican City, a former archbishop of Detroit and a close friend of the pope, described him as being given oxygen through his nose.

"I blessed him and he tried to make the sign of the cross... I was sad to see him suffering," he told CBS News.

In apparent efforts to wrap up church affairs in his last hours, the pope appointed 17 new bishops and archbishops.

Navarro-Valls choked up in detailing that John Paul asked to be read the biblical passage describing the final stage of the Way of the Cross, when Jesus Christ's body was taken down from the cross, wrapped in a linen shroud and placed in a tomb. He described the pope as following attentively and making the sign of the cross.

"This is surely an image I have never seen in these 26 years," a tearful Navarro-Valls said.

The Vatican called on the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics to pray for the Polish-born pope.

"We want to be close to him in this hour through the same loving closeness with which John Paul II has accompanied us for nearly 27 years," Ruini said.

The White House released a statement from President Bush that he and First Lady Laura Bush were praying for the pontiff.

In February, The Catholic magazine "Inside the Vatican" reported the pontiff came just moments from dying when he was rushed to the hospital on Feb 1 suffering from flu-like symptoms.

"We caught him by a whisker. If he had come in 10 minutes later, he would have been gone," the magazine quoted one witness as saying.

The pope's brush with death prompted speculation about his retirement.

The last pope to resign willingly was Celestine V, who stepped down in 1294.