Vatican: Pope improving, eating regularly
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ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Pope John Paul II is improving and eating regularly, The Vatican says.
"The state of health of the Holy Father has improved," papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told reporters, reading from a brief Vatican medical bulletin.
He said tests confirmed that the pope's latest health crisis had stabilized, and that there was a "favorable evolution" of the breathing troubles he suffered earlier in the week.
Vatican sources said the 84-year-old pontiff hopes to deliver his regular Sunday address this weekend from a hospital window.
But he will not meet U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits the Vatican Tuesday, U.S. sources said. Instead, Rice will meet with Vatican officials Cardinal Angelo Sodano and Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo to discuss peace in the Middle East and religious freedom in Iraq.
It said the pope canceled a meeting set for Friday with Josep Borrell Fontelles, the president of the European Parliament.
Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls suggested Thursday that the pope might stay for up to a week at the clinic's heavily guarded papal suite, telling The Associated Press: "When I've had the flu, it lasts seven days."
The Vatican has tried to play down the latest crisis. "All he's got is the flu, which has become dangerous because of the Parkinson's," Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who heads the Vatican's Congregation of Bishops, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera. "But now the danger is over."
The pope, who suffers from a number of chronic ailments, including Parkinson's disease, last appeared in public Sunday. His voice was hoarse, but he appeared to be in good spirits.
His health has been steady in recent months, and he looked in better health than during the summer and fall of 2003, when his trips to Croatia and Slovakia appeared to take a heavy toll on the frail pontiff.
The last time the pope canceled an event was September 2003, when he had an intestinal ailment.
The pope has undergone nine operations -- including a hip replacement -- and survived an assassination attempt.
His illness has reopened debate about whether popes should retire instead of reigning for life. No pope has abdicated since the 15th century. (Full story)
CNN Producer Hada Messia and Vatican Analyst John Allen contributed to this story.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
