Even communist China, which bars its Catholics from recognizing the pope's authority and cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, was sympathetic to John Paul II's plight.
"We express our concern. We hope he will receive good medical treatment and his health can be restored," a foreign ministry official told reporters.
Three out of the five major newspapers in Shinto-dominated Japan carried front page reports on the state of the pope's health.
Catholics in overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand organized an overnight vigil for the faithful to pray for him.
In Malaysia, Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Reverend Murphy Pakiam urged Catholics to keep praying for their church leader.
Our Lady of Sorrows Church parishioner John David told the Star newspaper in northern Penang state the pope had served the church well and he deserved peace.
a thwarted plot
A week before the pope visited Manila in 1995, police officials said they stumbled upon a plan by Muslim militants, led by convicted 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, to assassinate him using powerful bombs.
The al-Qaeda-linked militants rented a Manila apartment along a road where the pope would pass and near his official residence. But a fire erupted as Yousef mixed bomb ingredients, drawing police attention. Yousef escaped, but one of his companions, Abdul Hakim Murad, was arrested.
Police found in Yousef's room large amounts of explosives as well as copies of the Bible, priests' white cassocks and vestments which would have been used in the attack.
Delfin said the discovery of the plot "was a blessing" because other evidence in the room let police discover and thwart other terror plots, including the simultaneous bombing of US commercial airliners.
Murad also told interrogators of a plan to hijack a commercial plane that would be rammed into CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia -- one of the first omens of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said.
"I feel sad seeing the news and seeing him in that condition," Delfin said, adding that he felt fulfilled that he once helped save the pope's life.
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