So looks like the Popes long life is coming to an end.
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BBC NEWS: Pope 'lucid' after heart failure
Pope John Paul II is conscious and lucid after suffering serious heart problems, the Vatican has announced.
The Pope has breathing problems and unstable blood pressure, spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said, but said his "situation is stable". He said the Pope was able to make the sign of the Cross on Friday morning as aides read the scriptures to him.
After his heart problems on Thursday, the Pope received the Catholics' last rites for the sick and dying. The Pope's health worsened on Thursday when he developed "a urinary tract infection" which later brought about "septic shock and a cardio-circulatory collapse", the Vatican announced earlier.
Observers said this signalled that the end of one of the longest papal reigns was fast approaching, the BBC's David Willey in Rome says.
Earlier, at the Vatican, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Pope's deputy for Rome - a position traditionally charged with breaking the news of a papal death - called on believers to "intensify their prayers".
Traffic restrictions are being imposed around the Vatican and the Italian authorities are making plans to deal with a huge influx of pilgrims anxious to be present as this historic pontificate appears to be drawing to its close.
Cardinals who have the duty to elect a new pope are beginning to arrive in Rome from all over the world, Italian media have reported.
Pope stays put
On Thursday, the Pope was "immediately informed about the gravity of his condition", Mr Navarro-Valls told reporters at the Vatican.
But he decided not to return to Rome's Gemelli hospital - and is being treated in his apartment by a team of four top consultants from the Catholic teaching hospital in Rome and his private doctor Renato Buzzonetti.
On Friday morning, he was "still lucid, fully conscious and extraordinarily serene", the spokesman said. "This is surely an image I have never seen in these 26 years."
Groups of faithful have started gathering in St Peter's Square to pray for the Pope's speedy recovery.
The Pope has Parkinson's Disease, an incurable neurological condition from which he has been suffering for nearly a decade.
Prelates are openly expressing pessimism about the possibility of the Pope ever resuming the guidance of his one billion-strong Church.
The pontiff is being fed through a nasal tube to aid his recovery from throat surgery last month.
The Pope had appeared briefly at the window of his Vatican apartment on Easter Sunday to bless the faithful, but was not able to speak.
It was the first time during his 26-year pontificate that the Pope delegated the main Easter ceremonies to his cardinals.
He tried again to speak to the faithful a few days later - a sign of his extraordinary strong will, our correspondent says.
So far this year, the Pope has had two spells in hospital where he received treatment for breathing problems and underwent an operation on his throat.
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I'm not religious but must say that i have felt sorry for the pope ever since he got ill and was forced to carry on working. So here's the deal i was wondering who agrees with me that as soon as a Pope gets as ill as he did, then they should be allowed or forced into retirement and left to rest in peace as normal people would. Remembering he is the leader of one of the biggest institutions in the world and has Parkinson's disease for 10 years.
Oh and what will happen after the pope dies, will anything really change?