Pope John's last illness set a mortal infection against a strong heart, which -as the world waited fearfully-pumped like a clock for three days after doctors gave up hope on Friday, May 31. A stomach tumor, with internal hemorrhages, had struck him earlier in the week, but it was the resulting peritonitis that now brought him near death. He lapsed in and out of comas, scarcely able to bear the pain that morphine could no longer kill. "My Jesus," he cried out in a lucid moment during his last ordeal. "Free me...
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