Pope 'abandons self to God's will'
John Paul absent from Good Friday services
VATICAN CITY -- A cardinal who stood in for Pope John Paul II in a Holy Week ceremony at the Vatican said the ailing pontiff was "serenely abandoning" himself to God's will.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said the 84-year-old pontiff linked his own suffering to that of Jesus Christ.
John Paul's words were being seen as poignant by the Roman Catholic faithful because this year is the first in his papacy he has missed services leading up to Easter this Sunday.
"Through his absence, he is more than ever present at this Mass," Re said in his sermon during a solemn service in St. Peter's Basilica Thursday.
"We want to thank him for the witness he continues to give us even through his example of serene abandonment to God, which he links to the mystery of the cross."
U.S. Archbishop John Foley said it was "very obvious" the pope was carrying "a very heavy cross indeed."
Cardinals were due to stand in for the pope at Good Friday services commemorating Christ's crucifixion and death, as well as on Easter Eve and Easter Sunday, commemorating the day Christians believe Christ rose from the dead.
John Paul was expected to use a video connection Friday to participate in the Way of the Cross procession at Rome's Colosseum.
The Vatican also said the pope would not hear confessions in St. Peter's Basilica on Good Friday -- a change from previous years.
On Sunday the pope is expected to deliver his Easter "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) blessing after his secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, presides at Easter Mass for him.
Re, a senior Vatican official very close to the pontiff, presided at the first of two Holy Thursday rites which the ailing pope failed to attend.
John Paul, whose health is precarious following throat surgery last month, watched the service on television from his Vatican apartments.
'In God's hands'
Throughout his various illnesses and brushes with death, even following the assassination attempt against him in 1981, the pope always said his life was in God's hands.
At the start of the Mass Thursday, Re read a message from John Paul.
"I am united ideally with all of you who are gathered in the Vatican basilica," the pope said in his message. "Via television from my apartment, my dearest ones, I am spiritually with you."
On Thursday afternoon, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo stood in for the pope at another rite in which the cardinal washed and kissed the feet of 12 priests to commemorate Christ's gesture of humility toward his apostles on the night before he died.
In a message read to that service, the pope said he was with the faithful "in mind and heart." The congregation applauded and later took part in a prayer that the pope could continue carrying out his ministry.
John Paul underwent a tracheotomy to relieve severe breathing problems on February 24. He has spent a total of 28 days in two stints at Rome's Gemelli hospital these past two months.
Since he left hospital on March 13, the pope, who also suffers from Parkinson's disease and severe arthritis, has made four very brief appearances in public.
The pope still has a tube, known as a cannula, in his throat to help him breathe, and medical experts have said he will probably have to keep it there for the rest of his life.
Special significance
Holy Week services had taken on a special significance because of the pontiff's suffering, top U.S. Vatican official Foley said.
"It's very obvious that the pope is carrying a very heavy cross indeed, and he is giving a marvelous example of patience in the face of suffering, and of long suffering which in itself is a virtue," Foley told Vatican Radio Friday.
"So there's added significance in which the holy father is associated with Jesus in the carrying of the cross," said Foley, who heads the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
"It's certainly a great sacrifice for him not to be with his people as in all these years in a physical and direct way, but in a certain sense, he will be present in an even more powerful way," Venice Cardinal Angelo Scola said of the pope's Good Friday absence.
"This is the great mystery of the authority of the church," said Scola in comments for an Italian TV program.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
