by Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican Web site has highlighted Pope John Paul II's public e-mail address so that well-wishers can send him their greetings and promises of prayer.

As in the past, the Vatican's Internet office added the e-mail link to the Vatican's home page Feb. 25 without fanfare or public notice.

Pope John Paul was hospitalized Feb. 24 and underwent a tracheotomy to help him breathe. As of March 1, the Vatican had not said how long he would remain at Rome's Gemelli hospital.

Messages may be sent to the pope by clicking on a link in English titled "Best Wishes for the Holy Father" on the Vatican's homepage: www.vatican.va.

It opens an e-mail form with the pope's address -- john_paul_ii@vatican.va -- for those writing in English. Those writing in Spanish can use: juan_pablo_ii@vatican.va. Links also are available in German, French, Italian and Portuguese.

Because of the volume of e-mail the pope receives when the address is highlighted, the Vatican usually gives it prominence on the home page only on special occasions such as Christmas or the pope's May 18 birthday.

But even when the address was not easy to find on the Web site, when the pope was hospitalized Feb. 1-10 he received between 40,000 and 50,000 e-mail messages, said Legionaries of Christ Father Fernando Vergez, an official in the Vatican's Internet office.

Father Vergez said March 1 he did not know how many e-mails the pope had received since undergoing the tracheotomy because the Internet office is "really just a transit point" for the messages, which are forwarded to the Vatican Secretariat of State.

Arriving at an address already divided according to language, each message is read by an official in the secretariat. He prepares a summary of the messages he has read and forwards the summary to the pope, along with the complete texts of a few sample messages.