"Mass was celebrated at 7:30 this morning in the presence of the pope," he said, adding that the pontiff did not take part.

Addressing the crowd last night at St. Peter's Square, where as many as 70,000 people prayed and stood vigil, Angelo Comastri, the pope's vicar general for Vatican City, said, "This evening or this night, Christ opens the door to the pope."

The pope "is on the verge of death," Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican's health care office, told the Mexican TV network Televisa. "I talked to the doctors and they told me there is no more hope."

In a sign of the pope's decline, several cardinals said they were heading to Rome, including Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, and William Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore, Md. After the official mourning period following the death of a pope, cardinals hold a secret vote in the Sistine Chapel to choose a successor.

Around the world, priests readied Roman Catholics for John Paul's passing after 26 years of leading the church. Many expressed hope that his final hours would be peaceful.

"Now he prepares to meet the Lord," Cardinal Francis George said at a Mass in Chicago. "As the portals of death open for him, as they will for each of us ... we must accompany him with our own prayers."

Newspapers in Italy devoted most of their editions today to the suffering of the Polish pope, whose given name is Karol Wojtyla. Il Tempo showed a photo of the white-clad pontiff with his back turned to the camera, with the headline, "Ciao, Karol."

The Il Secolo XIX newspaper of Genoa reported that the pope, with the help of his private secretary Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, wrote a note to his aides urging them not to weep for him.

"I am happy, and you should be as well," the note reportedly said. "Let us pray together with joy."

The Vatican said yesterday morning that John Paul was in "very grave" condition after suffering blood poisoning from a urinary tract infection the previous night, but that he was "fully conscious and extraordinarily serene." The pope was being treated by the Vatican medical team and declined to be hospitalized.

By last night, the pope's condition had worsened further, and he was suffering from kidney failure and shortness of breath but had not lost consciousness as of 9:30 p.m., the Vatican said.

As word of his condition spread across the globe, special Masses celebrated the pope for transforming the Roman Catholic Church and for his example in fearlessly confronting death.

In Wadowice, Poland, people left school and work early and headed to church to pray for their native son.

"I want him to hold on, but it is all in God's hands now," said 64-year-old Elzbieta Galuszko at the church where the pope was baptized. "We can only pray for him so he can pull through these difficult moments."

In the Philippines, tears streamed down the face of Linda Nicol as she and her husband asked God to grant John Paul "a longer life."

At the Church of the Assumption in Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa's most populous city of more than 13 million, about 200 Nigerians in Western clothes and bright traditional African robes sat on wooden benches, offering prayers for the pope at a midday Mass.

In Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said he had heard from Rome that the pope was "sinking." McCarrick said he prayed that God will "take him peacefully."

Karol Wojtyla became a priest in 1946, just as the Iron Curtain descended across Europe, and the inspiration he provided as Pope John Paul II helped to tear it down.

"Fifty percent of the collapse of communism is his doing," Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement that toppled communism in Poland in 1989-90, said yesterday.

A dozen nuns said the rosary today while standing at the foot of the obelisk in St. Peter's and looking at the pope's windows. They had just attended a morning Mass at St. Peter's Basilica.

Sister Arlete said she felt both sadness and happiness: "Sadness because he's dying, but happiness that his suffering will end, because he's truly suffering. He's a spiritual father who helps us grow in life with so much love and peace."

A workman in the square, declining to give his name, said that crews were taking down the canopy on the steps of the basilica, which had covered an altar during Easter Sunday Mass. They said they had orders to clear the space for when the pope's coffin eventually is carried into the square.

Police in a motorized cart moved around the square, telling some faithful who were kneeling on the cobblestones to get up. Police said they were given orders that no one be allowed to sit or pray on the pavement in the square.

Yesterday morning, John Paul had participated in Mass and received some top aides at his bedside, Navarro-Valls said.

Cardinal Marcio Francesco Pompedda, a high-ranking Vatican administrator, visited the pope and said he opened his eyes and smiled.

"I understood he recognized me. It was a wonderful smile — I'll remember it forever. It was a benevolent smile — a father-like smile," Pompedda told RAI television. "I also noticed that he wanted to tell me something but he could not. ... But what impressed me very much was his expression of serenity."

Hospitalized twice last month after breathing crises, and fitted with a breathing tube and a feeding tube, John Paul has become a picture of suffering.

His papacy has been marked by its call to value the aged and to respect the sick, subjects the pope has turned to as he battles Parkinson's disease and crippling knee and hip ailments.

It is not clear who would be empowered to make medical decisions for an unconscious pope. The Vatican would not say whether John Paul has left written instructions.

John Paul's health declined sharply Thursday when he developed a high fever brought on by the infection. The pope suffered septic shock and heart problems during treatment for the infection, the Vatican said.

Septic shock involves both bacteria in the blood and a consequent over-relaxing of the blood vessels. The vessels, which are normally narrow and taut, get floppy in reaction to the bacteria and can't sustain any pressure. That loss of blood pressure is catastrophic, making the heart work hard to compensate for the collapse.

Yesterday morning, John Paul asked aides to read him the biblical passage describing the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross, the path that Christ took to his Crucifixion and burial, Navarro-Valls said.

John Paul also asked that Scripture of the so-called "Third Hour" be read to him. The passage is significant because according to tradition, Christ died at three o'clock in the afternoon.