On the 102nd foreign trip of a pontificate that will reach the quarter-century mark next month, Pope John Paul II has projected a confusing portrait of surprising resilience and alarming weakness, of clear determination and equally clear limitation.
During a two-hour Mass here on Friday, the pope, 83, fixed an alert gaze on the crowd in front of him and when he spoke, his voice was perfectly lucid.
But he did not try to speak much, letting a Slovak cardinal read the bulk of his sermon.
As he was transported from one area of this city in central Slovakia to another, he lifted an arm high to wave to the people who lined his path. But to get him onto the flight that carried him here from Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, aides more or less carried him from a sedan on the tarmac to a planeside lift -- a distance of about two meters.
His degree of vigor changes from day to day, even hour to hour, and that unpredictability has come to dominate much about his journeys. It was addressed head-on by Bishop Rudolf Balaz, a Roman Catholic leader here, who welcomed the pope at Friday's Mass.
"Your visit is extremely precious for us," the bishop said, "because you come to us with weakened health, with much strain and bearing a cross."
Not so long ago, Roman Catho-lic leaders and Vatican officials publicly played down the pope's ailments, including Parkinson's disease and almost crippling arthritis. Now they talk about his courage in pressing on.
They say it is the pope who insists on continuing to work and travel. One Vatican official speculated that the pope wanted to die as an active man, not a passive one, even if his exertions hastened that end.
Dr. Gianni Pezzoli, an Italian expert on Parkinson's disease, said that the pope's health was not served by physically draining trips like this one, which began Thursday and is scheduled to end on Sunday.
"We are dealing with a patient who is hardly compliant," said Pezzoli. "We have to expect his health to worsen."
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