Will Pope John Paul II embark on one of his most important journeys of his life, or will his trip to Slovakia have been his last one? Was the great weakness the 83-year old pontiff displayed in that country due to a deterioration of his health, or was he just given a wrong dosage of medicines against Parkinson's?
"Watch his travel plans," a Vatican insider told United Press International Monday. "If the Pope flies to Mongolia with a stopover in Kazan, Russia, then we may have just witnessed the results of faulty medication when he was unable to finish his sermon in Slovakia. If not, well then. ..."
The Vatican has not scheduled any papal journeys abroad. But the long-anticipated trip to Ulan Bator is expected to be one of the most significant in the traveling career of this peripatetic pope, not because of his final destination but because of what he intends to do on his way back.
As a gesture of reconciliation with the Russian Church, John Paul II plans to return one its most cherished icon, the Mother of God of Kazan, which currently hangs opposite his desk in the Vatican.
Healing the almost 1,000-year schism between the Eastern and the Western Church has been one of most important tasks this pope has set for himself. In his effort to make the Church breathe once again with "both lungs," as he phrased it, John Paul has made considerable inroads with Orthodox leaders in Greece, the Ukraine and other countries, but not Russia.
The magnificent icon, which may be of Byzantine origin and first appeared miraculously in Kazan, 500 miles East of Moscow, in 1579 A.D., is to help to break the ice, or so the Catholic Church hopes.
Earlier this year, the Vatican confirmed that negations were under way with the Russian Church. The plan was for John Paul to interrupt his return journey from Mongolia in Kazan and hand the painting to Patriarch Alexei II, the head of that denomination. Given the pontiff's feeble state of health and the Russian patriarch's intransigence, it is unclear whether this meeting will come about.
Questions have also been raised as to whether the icon in the pope's apartments is indeed the original or a magnificent copy. Its story is nonetheless remarkable. In 1579, a little girl found it in the ashes of a house in Kazan, currently the capital of the Russian autonomous republic of Tatarstan.
In 1612 it gained a reputation of miraculous powers when it was brought to Moscow just before that city's liberation from Polish occupation. In 1812, it is reputed to have given enormous courage to Russian troops fighting the invading French under Napoleon.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, it seems the Communists sold this extremely valuable work of art to a passing English noblemen. It then went to Canada and the United States and was finally purchased by the Blue Army, a Catholic lay association connected with the Marian shrine of Fatima in Portugal.
At Fatima, the icon was donated to John Paul II when he visited the shrine in 1991. Ever since, Russian Orthodox official have demanded its return, and the pope has indicated that he was willing to make this gesture.
The question is now: Will he or will his successor do so? Vatican officials cautioned Monday not to count John Paul II out. Perhaps his condition has indeed deteriorated permanently, to wit his performance in Slovakia. Perhaps, though, he will once again surprise the world with his remarkable resilience.
His hallmark statement that "Christ has not come down from the cross either," meaning that as a faithful disciple he would never run away from suffering and retire, may even apply at this late stage, when this frail 83-year old sees an opportunity to embrace the reticent Russian patriarch and make the Church once again breathe with both lungs.