POPE NEAR DEATH

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A senior European cardinal said on Thursday Pope John Paul was nearing death -- the latest top churchman to ring alarm bells about the state of the 83-year old pontiff's health.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn made his comments on the same day the pope's private secretary was trying to play down concerns about the pope's evident frailty.

Pope John Paul, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease and can no longer walk without help, has appeared weaker than normal in recent public appearances and has struggled to speak at times.

"The whole world is experiencing a pope who is sick, handicapped and dying -- I don't know how close to death he is -- who is approaching the last days and months of his life," Schoenborn told Austrian radio. (full story)

Now I'm no fan of organized religion, certainly not of Catholicism, which is *the* organized religion. But Pope John Paul II has been a pretty good guy over the years, particularly once you adjust for all the no-sex-before-marriage and no-abortion stuff. His interfaith efforts have been thoroughly admirable (his visits to the Orthodox-dominated Greece, and the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, among others), and if his days are truly coming to an end, he will be missed.