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  Popes can resign, but John Paul has shown no inclination to do so. The last to step down was Celestine V, who abdicated in 1294 after five months because of the turmoil his papacy was causing within the church. All his successors served until their deaths.

The frail John Paul, who has Parkinson's disease, has been cutting back on his activities, leaving speeches to be read in his name and having trusted aides sit in for him at some Masses and represent him at events abroad while he concentrates on major documents and appearances like Christmas.

Still, before he came down with the flu on Sunday, he had not missed a scheduled audience in 16 months and had scheduled a trip to Germany in August.

On Tuesday night, he was rushed to the hospital because of a voicebox spasm, according to the Vatican. He also has inflammation of the windpipe, the upper airway.

The Vatican has insisted there is no cause for alarm, and John Paul's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, suggested the pope would be released from the hospital in a few days.

"All he's got is the flu, which has become dangerous because of the Parkinson's," Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who heads the Vatican's Congregation of Bishops, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera. "But now the danger is over."

Dr. Duncan Forsyth, a geriatrician specializing in Parkinson's at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, England, said it was difficult to tell whether John Paul had a simple viral infection or whether the problem involved a chest infection, which is more serious.

"They seem to have been quite specific in the information they have given out. It's all upper airways," he said. "Once they start saying he's got a chest infection, that implies a greater degree of seriousness."

Chest infections are common in Parkinson's disease patients because they often have difficulty swallowing. Food or saliva may go down the wrong way, to the lungs instead of the stomach - a process called aspiration. That can set off inflammation in the airway and infection. Aspiration pneumonia is a common cause of death among Parkinson's disease patients.

The sooner John Paul is released from the hospital, the more likely he is to be the same man as the one that went in, according to Forsyth and other medical experts. The longer he remains hospitalized, the more serious the problem is and the higher the possibility that he might not return to his usual state, they said.

Some experts have argued that the church could face a major crisis should a pope lapse into a coma or become mentally disabled because there are no procedures that set out a succession formula.

Only a pope can appoint bishops - an action taken weeks before they are announced - or create dioceses. He cannot delegate some aspects of his authority, such as infallibility.

Even some cardinals have broached the problem publicly. Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, himself mentioned as a possible successor to John Paul, has said that future popes will abdicate.

"One cannot continue to bear the responsibility if you turn 90 or 100, no matter how well you're cared for. But the choice of the right moment must be the prerogative of the pope, and that's how it will work," he said in a 2003 magazine interview.

One prelate who follows the succession process closely said these are the kind of issues that would be discussed by the cardinals before they assemble in a conclave to elect a successor to John Paul.

It also is not clear who would be empowered to make medical decisions for an unconscious pope.

The Vatican's No. 2, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, is the prelate who steps in at the Holy See in John Paul's temporary absence while hospitalized. His name also figures among the "papabili," as the possible top contenders to be the next pontiff are called in Italian.

Meanwhile, most of the Vatican's day-to-day operations are handled by the Curia - a well-oiled bureaucracy with centuries-old roots.

The pope has no close relatives, but the Vatican has officially declined to comment whether John Paul has left written instructions.

Still, ask anyone at the Vatican and they reply the pope has a family for such emergencies, pointing to the members of the Papal Household and in particular to Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who has served as the pope's secretary since his days as archbishop of Krakow, Poland.

© 2005 The Associated Press

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