by John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II's abbreviated and poignant Holy Week appearances have left many people worried about his health and wondering about his future schedule.

After the pope was unable to pronounce even an Easter blessing to a crowd of 70,000 in St. Peter's Square, newspapers around the world expressed alarm and said it was clear the pope's recovery from a tracheotomy was not going well.

"The Excruciating Appearance of the Pope" read the headline March 28 in the French newspaper Le Figaro. "The End of a Pontificate" said the Internet edition of the German paper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Italian newspapers were already reporting rumors that the 84-year-old pope would be taken again to Rome's Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic, where he had the operation in late February to insert a tube in his throat after a breathing crisis.

The Vatican has not issued a statement on the pope's health since March 10, three days before he was released from the hospital.

Nor has the Vatican announced any schedule of papal events after Easter. The pontiff skipped a traditional noon blessing on Easter Monday, and no explanation was given. The presumption was that the pope would not be resuming his regular program of audiences any time soon.

Two doctors, however, had some consoling comments to make after seeing the pontiff on Easter.

"From what is emerging, we are reasonably calm about the postoperative progress of the pope," Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, the pope's personal physician, told the Rome newspaper La Repubblica March 28. He declined to elaborate.

Dr. Fabrizio Stocchi, a neurological expert in Rome whom the Vatican has consulted in the past, said people's expectations about the pope's recovery may have been too high.

"Considering the pope's age, his health history and the surgery he's had, I think his recovery so far could even be called a success," Stocchi told Catholic News Service March 29.

"People may have to realize that, while he may have better days and worse days, this is the pope we will have: one who cannot talk much if at all, and one who is able to do much less than before," he said.

Many viewers were alarmed not only by the pope's inability to speak, but also by his uncontrolled facial expressions during the 12 minutes he appeared at his apartment window on Easter. At times, his face wrenched in what looked to be grimaces of pain.

Stocchi said that paradoxically that may have been a good sign.

"These involuntary movements are called dyskinesias, and they are a side effect of the drug levodopa, which is used to treat Parkinson's patients. At least it means the levodopa is working, which is important," Stocchi said.

Stocchi, a professor of neurology at the Institute of Neurological Research at Rome's Sapienza University, is considered one of Italy's best experts on Parkinson's disease. The pope is believed to suffer from the disease.

Others pointed out that the pope appeared alert throughout the Easter appearance, following with attention the printed text of the message read in his name by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state.

"The pope is absolutely lucid," Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the doctrinal congregation, said on Italy's RAI television March 25. "His mind is alive and he has a sense of judgment that is perhaps stronger -- the capacity to choose the essential and to govern, while suffering, with few but essential decisions."

The small number of events already on the pope's calendar has been placed in doubt by his condition. He was to make an official visit April 29 to the Italian president, but that may be put off indefinitely, Italian media reported.

The Diocese of Rome has announced a Mass with the ordination of priests in St. Peter's Basilica April 17, an event usually presided over by the pope. On April 24, a Mass to beatify seven people will be celebrated at the Vatican; although the pope has presided over previous beatification liturgies, it is not necessary for him to be present.

Groups of Spanish bishops are continuing to make their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican, but without seeing the pontiff. Ambassadors, visiting dignitaries and heads of state have been meeting with Cardinal Sodano instead of the pope, and that is unlikely to change in the near future.