'Calm concern' among Catholics
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(CNN) -- With Pope John Paul II hospitalized for an acute respiratory infection, CNN Anchor Aaron Brown spoke with Father Tom Reese, editor-in-chief of "America" and the author of "Archbishop, Inside the Power Structure of the Catholic Church;" CNN Analyst Delia Gallagher at Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic; and Dr. John Cahill of St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in New York.
The following is an edited transcript of their conversation:
BROWN: Delia, just let me start with you. Is there a sense at the hospital of crisis? Have people gathered there? If you didn't know the pope was there, would there be any outward sign telling you that something was going on?
GALLAGHER: Well, the main outward sign, of course, would be all of the press people but, aside from us, there's nobody else that has gathered here because, of course, the news came in Italy probably about 11 o'clock at night.
So, many Italians will wake up tomorrow to this news. It's now about 4 in the morning, so it's been six hours since the pope's been admitted. And probably the most significant piece of information is just that his personal physician left here at the hospital a few hours ago.
And so, one can be perhaps reassured by that, that if his personal physician chose to leave his bedside that things might be calm at the moment. Certainly, outside it's very calm and inside we assume that the pope is resting.
BROWN: Father Reese, has there been any sense over the last weeks that the pope's health was anything but as it has been, which is he's battling lots of stuff and he's not a young man? He's gone through a lot.
REESE: Well, over the last couple of years his health has gone up and down and people have noticed that. But in the last few days, of course, he did develop the flu and that's had an impact on him. But, you know, even most recently when we saw him at the balcony above St. Peter's in that wonderful scene with the doves, he looked pretty good then.
REESE: So, he seems to go up and down. But the flu for a man that age with his problems is worth looking at seriously.
BROWN: I want to get to the doctor in a second. Just quickly, though, not to be conspiratorial, honestly, I'm just trying to understand something here, would the Vatican try and manage this, the news of this very carefully?
REESE: Well, under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican has been more open than it was in the past. I mean in the old days we wouldn't even be told he was sick. We wouldn't even probably be told that he was in the hospital. So, you know, 'A pope is never sick until he's dead' has been the Roman phrase. But under this pope there's been a little more openness on this, so I think we may get some information as time goes by.
BROWN: Let me turn to the doctor here for a second, rather than try and say this word. The way this is being described, the breathing problem, it sounds like a spasm in the larynx where you try and breathe but it sounds like your larynx closes off and you can't and this can go on for a minute and it's rarely life threatening but it's no small thing either, right?
CAHILL: That's correct. I mean a couple of things. When you get spasm of the upper airway, which often is caused from viral infections with inflammation and constriction of the airway, an individual can have difficulty breathing particularly an older person. If they receive or don't receive oxygen for a couple minutes, it can be potentially life threatening.
BROWN: And this is an outgrowth of the flu? It's something that the flu creates?
CAHILL: Well, the flu is a viral infection, as we know, and usually it infects, you know, the upper respiratory tract, so being, you know, the nose, the upper airway and also the lungs. So, there are a couple of things.
One, he could certainly have a viral pneumonia, which could cause the difficulty breathing. Or, if he develops an acute inflammation to the upper airway, right behind sort of where we swallow, then that can be, you know, acute airway obstruction and be potentially life threatening.
BROWN: Look, it's not reasonable, which I suppose it never stopped me before, but it's not reasonable to ask you to do diagnoses from, you know, 3,600 miles away or whatever. Does it sound to you like this is a bad case of the flu in a guy who's almost 85 years old?
CAHILL: Sure, I would think they've done the right thing by transferring him to a hospital. I would probably think more likely he has a viral pneumonia from the flu and he's having difficulty breathing from that because often when people have sort of a laryngeal spasm, usually that requires more emergent attention, sometimes a surgical airway or placing someone on a ventilator. From the sounds of it, he hasn't been placed on that.
BROWN: And just, again, when you're talking about someone who is in their mid-'80s, the concerns are -- is pneumonia a big concern now?
CAHILL: That's correct. Basically, you can develop a viral pneumonia and also just respiratory compromise where they're unable to oxygenate well enough. And, if we look at people who run into problems with sort of viral pneumonias or the flu, it's, you know, elderly people and very young children and people with significant medical problems.
And, you know, unfortunately the pope, you know, with his age and his past medical history and now he has a significant, you know, influenza infection of the flu, can develop, you know, respiratory failure or significant respiratory distress.
BROWN: Let me try and get to each of you one more time here before we go. When the news happened, when you first heard it, was there in the Catholic clergy community a sense of crisis or was it taken more calmly than that?
REESE: Well, I think the reaction of the church is one of, you know, concern but calm concern because, I mean we've known the pope has been not in really good health for a couple of years now and, you know, we all know we're mortal.
I mean that's one thing that we were well aware of and we pray for him and hope for the best but, you know, he like all of us are going to have to face our maker one of these days.
BROWN: Delia, let me end this with you. Do you have any sense of how the next day is going to play out? Are you getting any word from people in the Vatican what to expect over the next 24 hours?
GALLAGHER: Well, at the moment, of course, there's been no word from the Vatican because the Vatican is essentially closed for the evening but we do assume that tomorrow morning we will have some official word on the state of the pope's health and then it will be a watch and see.
Obviously, there will be much interest in the next few days. If this has just been a case of the flu, then we'll want to see him come back rather quickly and the Vatican is going ahead and planning his meetings.
Just this morning they were arranging his meeting with Condoleezza Rice for next week. And, again, we have known for three days that he has had the flu, so in terms of the alarm, again, I would say it's a calm state of alarm, if there can be such a thing because he has had the flu.
And so this precautionary measure, it should be said also, is he's brought to the hospital because in the Vatican they don't have the facilities. He does have a personal doctor but he's got about two or three men around him and they just took that precaution to bring him here where he's got 24-hour care and other doctors.
