Pope John Paul II’s personal physician Renato Buzzonetti has recalled the late Pontiff’s willingness to embrace suffering. In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, Dr Buzzonetti recalled details of the late Pope’s attitude to suffering, the Catholic News Agency reports.
Referring to the Parkinson’s disease that struck the Pope in 1991, Buzzonetti said he told the Holy Father “no one ever died” from a shaky hand but that it was a clear sign he was suffering from the disease.
“The Pope’s life was more complicated later because of the painful joint symptoms that were particularly intense in his right knee, which prevented John Paul II from standing up and walking briskly. These were two symptoms that, put together and intertwined, made it necessary for him to use a cane and later a wheelchair.”
Despite all of the pain, the doctor said, the Holy Father “never asked for sedatives, not even in his final stages. It was above all the pain of a man who was enclosed, prostrate on a bed or in a chair, who had lost physical autonomy.
He couldn’t do anything by himself, and eventually he was completely physically disabled: he could not walk, he couldn’t speak other than with a weak voice, his breathing was labored and short, he ate with increasing difficulty.”
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