Vatican City - As Pope John Paul II struggles with his latest health crisis, a new image of his papacy is emerging - one based on gestures, images and video appearances.
Some call it a virtual papacy, others say it is simply the natural outcome of frailties that have kept John Paul from speaking even during Christianity's solemn Easter celebrations.
Throughout his 26-year papacy, John Paul has been one of the world's most visible figures, and in illness he has become "a victim of the high expectations that he himself set over these years," said the Rev. John Wauck, a Vatican expert at Rome's University of the Holy Cross.
"He has created a thirst on the part of not just Catholics but Christians all over the world to see him," Wauck said in an interview.
There are no rules requiring popes to preside at public services. Most of what church law demands of the pontiff is carried out off-stage, such as the appointing of bishops - and John Paul appears capable of making such decisions.
But the modern papacy, particularly as refined under the Polish pontiff who traveled the world and shared with former President Ronald Reagan the moniker "Great Communicator," has a very public side. And as Wauck points out, "the expectations created by the modern media over the last 30 years are really unique."
The Corriere della Sera newspaper recently commented that the Vatican appeared to be trying to achieve a form of church leadership through "gesture and image."
"The decisive element in this new phase of the pontificate is TV, which will render the convalescent pope present at events and will make his silent figure a 'talking' one," it said.
So while John Paul wasn't at the Colosseum for the Way of the Cross procession on Good Friday, images of him praying in his private chapel at the Vatican while following event on a tiny TV were flashed on giant screens at the site. He had also appeared briefly in video in St. John Lateran Basilica for a gathering of young Catholics before Palm Sunday.
Vatican TV crews are always ready to capture the pope on video, but decisions on John Paul's video appearances are apparently made at the last minute based on his condition.
At noontime Monday, for example, a Vatican TV camera zoomed in on the pope's window for his traditional post-Easter appearance, but this year the curtains remained closed.
Vatican TV also caught one of the most poignant moments of the recent papacy, when it beamed images of John Paul trying but failing to speak on Easter Sunday.
The pope had come to his studio window at the end of Easter Mass to bless the tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square below. Aides readied a microphone, and he tapped it as if preparing to speak. But after uttering a few unintelligible sounds - a look of frustration on his face - he made the sign of the cross with his hand and the microphone was taken away.
Vatican Radio said Monday it would be difficult to forget the pope's pained blessing and that it would "remain in the history of the church and humanity."
Since the 84-year-old pope was hospitalized Feb. 1 with a breathing crisis after an attack of the flu, John Paul has been forced to pass up another important aspect of his role as leader of the world's one billion Roman Catholics: his audiences with global leaders.
Foreign dignitaries such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have passed through Rome and held talks with other Vatican officials.
Nor is it known when - or whether - what the Vatican calls his period of convalescence will end. Corriere reported Tuesday that doctors are considering sending the pope back to the hospital next week for tests on the tube that was inserted in his throat to help him breathe. There was no comment from the Vatican; the hospital said the report was speculation.
The only major events ahead for John Paul on a schedule drawn up before his recent health setbacks are beatifications April 24 and an official visit to Italy's president April 29. Further down the line is World Youth Day in August in Cologne, Germany.
That still leaves the other key aspect of the papacy: his appearances at the Vatican before the faithful. John Paul, like other recent popes, has been meeting with pilgrims each Wednesday and blessing them from his apartment on Sundays.
Pope Paul VI, who died in 1978, cut back sharply on public activities in the last months of his life. Pope Pius XII, who died in 1958, was in poor health for years.