In his last moments, Pope John Paul II lay in the large but modestly furnished bedroom he had called home for 26 years. His longtime aide, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, a fellow Pole who for nearly 40 years was as close to him as a son, sat by his bedside and prayed. The pontiff was given the sacrament for the sick and dying. Thirteen other people were in the room -- doctors, nurses, servants and senior clerics -- when at 9:37 p.m. Saturday his heart finally stopped beating.
Those are the bare facts of the pope's death as reported by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, director of the Vatican press office. No one who was there has come forward to speak publicly, and much of John Paul's final hours are shrouded in mystery.
What few details the Vatican has offered depict a wise and long-suffering pontiff passing into eternity only after pausing to send one last message and bestow one more blessing upon the millions of faithful who followed and believed in him.
Navarro-Valls reported that on Friday evening John Paul "seemed to have said the following sentence: 'I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you.' " The message, which the pope repeated several times, was apparently addressed to the young people who had gathered in St. Peter's Square to honor the pontiff in his final days, Navarro-Valls said.
Another account came from Marco Politi, Vatican reporter for La Repubblica newspaper, who quoted the Rev. Jarek Cielecki, editor of the Vatican news service, as saying: "At a certain point, a few moments before he died, the Pope raised his right hand, moving it in an obvious, if only faint, gesture of blessing, as if he were aware of the crowd of the faithful present in the square who at the time were following the saying of the rosary.
"As soon as the prayer was over, the pope made a very great effort and said the word 'Amen.' A moment later, he was dead."
Politi did not indicate where Cielecki obtained this account, and Cielecki was not available for comment.
But Corrado Manni, a former Vatican physician who first diagnosed the pope's Parkinson's disease in the early 1990s, said he found the account plausible.
"Knowing him and his remarkable strength and character, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that he would have tried to raise his arm to bless the crowd yesterday," Manni said in a telephone interview. "His will was frightening. His heart was stronger than you could ever imagine.
Final ordeal
"I was not in his room when he apparently raised his hand. But I wouldn't be surprised if he used his last strength to make a final gesture and force himself to say 'amen.' "
The pope's protracted final ordeal began on Jan. 31 when the Vatican announced he had a mild case of flu. The next day he was admitted to Gemelli Polyclinic hospital with breathing difficulties and an inflamed throat. He was discharged after 10 days but soon suffered a relapse and returned to Gemelli for 18 days undergoing a tracheotomy to help him breath.
After the pope returned to the Vatican on March 13, officials lowered a curtain of silence that lasted through Easter. He appeared at his window on Easter Sunday, but was unable to utter more than a gutteral rasp to the crowd gathered below his window.
Three days later, on Wednesday, he made his final appearance, remaining at the window for about four minutes as the faithful cheered. Later that day, the Vatican broke its silence to disclose that the pontiff had been equipped with a feeding tube.
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Navarro-Valls said then that the pontiff "continues his slow and progressive convalescence" and was spending "many hours each day" in a chair while carrying on his work and meeting with Vatican officials.
The next day, however, he took a turn for the worse, according to a new bulletin. It said the pope was suffering from a high fever, septic shock and heart failure after developing a urinary tract infection. Officials reported the pontiff was responding well to antibiotics but remained very sick. In a subsequent bulletin, the Vatican acknowledged that he had received Holy Viaticum, a special Holy Communion provided to Catholics as they near death.
The final drama took place in the pope's apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square, where the pontiff insisted on remaining rather than returning to the hospital.
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In "Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II," George Weigel describes the apartment as plain and practical, in marked contrast to the splendor of the Apostolic Palace with its Raphael frescoes, rich tapestries and marble. The pope's bedroom was a large but unadorned space divided by an old-fashioned folding partition. On one side was a small desk; the other side contained a full-sized bed with a simple white bedspread, several free-standing closets and a large table where the pope liked to display books of photography.
‘Very serene’
Things moved rapidly toward the end. The Vatican's first bulletin Friday at 6:30 a.m. characterized his condition as "very serious" and said the pope was receiving unspecified "therapeutic measures and cardio-respiratory assistance," but it also reported that John Paul had participated in morning Mass.
Navarro-Valls briefed journalists again at noon, saying the pope's blood pressure was unstable but that he remained conscious. Navarro-Valls himself began to weep and cut short the session after describing the pontiff as "lucid, fully aware and, I must say, very serene."
Serenity was the theme the Vatican was emphasizing near the end. Vincenzo Paglia, the bishop of Terni, said that when he spoke with Dziwisz, the pope's personal secretary, he stressed that the pontiff "was extremely serene. Between the two of them, there was a sense of total respect and enormous fidelity. Stanislaw had a serene but sad voice on the phone."
The Vatican also depicted John Paul as still engaged in church business. On Friday afternoon, a statement said the pope had formally accepted the resignations of six bishops, appointed 17 new bishops and archbishops and named two new Vatican ambassadors.
A bulletin at 6:30 Friday evening painted a dire picture: a gradual worsening of arterial hypotension , shallow breathing and cardiocirculatory and renal insufficiency. "The biological parameters are notably compromised," it read.
The next morning at 11:30, the pope's condition was reported unchanged but "very serious." As of dawn "the start of a compromised state of consciousness was observed."
By then the death watch had begun in earnest. Friends and colleagues came to the bedside to pay their last respects. According to the account in La Repubblica, Dziwisz caressed John Paul's hand from time to time, while the attending nuns stood by his bedside and murmured the rosary through tears. The newspaper said the pope was unable to recognize many of those who came to say goodbye.
Veil of linen
When a pope dies there is a series of traditions by which his retinue is said to confirm the death. The traditional method was to tap the forehead three times with a small silver hammer, call out his baptismal name three times and place a cloth over his face to see if he was breathing. Many experts believe the hammer is apocryphal, but the report in La Repubblica claimed a delicate veil of linen was draped over the pontiff's face. Then, it said, Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo lifted the cloth and softly pronounced the pontiff's Polish first name twice: "Karol" and then "Carolus."
There was no response.
The world got its first word of the death through e-mails sent to news organizations by Navarro-Valls's Vatican press office.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the pontiff's secretary of state, left the pope's room and headed for the prayer service taking place in St. Peter's Square below. He told the crowd the pope had died a peaceful death.
"I think the pope's heart must have stopped beating out of exhaustion," said Manni, the former Vatican physician. "He had an extremely strong heart -- I am convinced that is the only way he managed to endure all that he did over the years, from his assassination [attempt] to the tracheotomy, and live until he was 84 with Parkinson's. But his heart must have given up yesterday after trying to fight everything."
Special correspondent Sheila Pierce contributed to this article.