Vatican: Pope's condition 'very grave'
Spokesman denies heart attack report


VATICAN CITY (CNN) -- Pope John Paul II's condition is "very grave," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said early Friday, the first time the Vatican has used such language to describe the pontiff's latest health crisis.

Navarro-Valls told reporters the pope had suffered "cardiocirculatory collapse and shock" but denied media reports that the ailing pontiff had had a heart attack.

He said the pope remains lucid and serene and is being treated in the Vatican, because it is his desire to remain in his residence and not return to the hospital.

The pontiff even concelebrated a Mass early Friday, Navarro-Valls said.

The Vatican was expected to issue a new update on the pope's late Friday morning.

Earlier, a Vatican official said the pope appeared to be responding well to antibiotic treatment for a urinary tract infection that caused him to develop a fever.

On Thursday night, as his health deteriorated, the pontiff received the Catholic Church's sacrament Anointing of the Sick, formerly known as Last Rites or Extreme Unction -- a ritual of healing, a Vatican source told CNN.

The sacrament is given to patients who are seriously ill in addition to those who are near death. The pope last received the sacrament in 1981, when he was wounded by a would-be assassin.

The news of the pope's worsening condition came two days after the Vatican revealed that he had a feeding tube inserted through his nose to provide more nutrition as he struggled to recover from a tracheotomy five weeks ago.

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