VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope John Paul II met with a top cardinal and sent messages to students and Italy’s premier Saturday, reinforcing the Vatican’s portrayal of a pope who is alert and attending to church business even as he recovers from his latest health crisis.

The Vatican said the frail, 84-year-old pontiff again would give a silent blessing Sunday from a window of Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital, where he is getting breathing and speech therapy after Feb. 24 throat surgery to ease his second respiratory crisis in a month.

“John Paul II will join the Angelus prayer from his hospital room, and at the end he will bless the faithful present at Gemelli Polyclinic the same way as last Sunday,” papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement.

John Paul made a surprise window appearance at the hospital a week ago, waving and giving the sign of the cross to cheering pilgrims gathered beneath his 10th-floor suite.

Navarro-Valls said Archbishop Leonardo Sandri – an Argentine from the Holy See’s secretary of state office who has become the pope’s official voice for the public – would read out the traditional weekly prayer known as the Angelus and deliver a blessing to believers gathered at St. Peter’s Square.

When he is well, the pope addresses the faithful from a window overlooking the square.

Although the pope can barely speak, and the Vatican has not said when he will be able to leave the hospital, a new image of the papacy has been emerging since his latest health crisis, emphasizing the power of his presence over that of the spoken word.

The Holy See sent messages of condolence to Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and to the family of Nicola Calipari, an intelligence agent killed by U.S. fire in Iraq on Friday while escorting Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena to freedom. Calipari’s brother is a priest who serves on a Vatican advisory board, Vatican Radio reported.

John Paul also prepared a message for a prayer meeting at the Vatican attended by university students in Rome and, via video hookup, by others in cities across Europe.

“I cannot be present among you, but you are just as close to me with affection and prayer,” the pope’s message said.

He called the gathering an “important moment of prayer and reflection” ahead of World Youth Day in August in Cologne, Germany, which the Vatican says the pope still plans to attend as his only scheduled foreign trip of the year.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope’s vicar for Rome and the influential president of the Italian Bishops Conference, told reporters outside the hospital that he saw the pope Saturday and “found him well, serene.”

“I can say to all that the news, as always, is positive,” Ruini said.

He said his visit with John Paul preceded a meeting next week of a bishops council – yet another suggestion from the Vatican that the pope was still involved in pressing church business.

The Vatican has said it is possible the pope could be released in time for Easter on March 27, but his level of participation in a flurry of Holy Week services beginning March 20 with Palm Sunday would still have to be worked out.

The pope’s overall health and recovery are complicated by Parkinson’s disease, which causes gradual loss of muscle control. He also suffers from crippling hip and knee ailments.

John Paul was taken by ambulance to Gemelli with breathing spasms Feb. 1 and was released Feb. 10, only to be rushed back Feb. 24 for surgery to insert a breathing tube in his throat.

Even when he cannot speak, the pope’s appearances and nonverbal blessings reassure the world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics, said the Rev. John Wauk, a professor at Rome’s Opus Dei University of Santa Croce.

“For the faithful, it’s not that the blessing is somehow different when the pope blesses them from the hospital,” he told Associated Press Television News. “Actually, I would say for the faithful it’s an opportunity to show their love and affection for the pope.

“In this sense, it’s almost a blessing from the faithful to the pope,” he said.

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Associated Press reporters Daniela Petroff and Alessandra Rizzo in Rome contributed to this report.

AP-ES-03-05-05 1429EST

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