Pope John Paul II celebrates his 25th anniversary as head of the Roman Catholic Church today with attention focused both on his past achievements and on future uncertainties.
Cardinals from around the world will join thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's square later today for a mass in honour of the 83-year-old pope, who has revolutionised his office and taken his message far beyond the confines of the tiny Vatican state.
"I think he will go down [in history] as John Paul the Great," US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, DC said this week.As the Silver Jubilee has neared, the pope's fragile health has appeared to go into steep decline and speculation about how long he might live or who might succeed him has inevitably cast a shadow over the festivities.
Close friends and advisers have told the faithful gathering in the Vatican that the papacy, already the fourth-longest in the history of the 2,000-year old Church, is still alive and well.
But images of a stooped John Paul, his body ravaged by Parkinson's disease and arthritis, offers a stark, gloomy contrast to archive film of the sprightly, smiling Karol Wojtyla striding onto the world stage on October 16th, 1978.