<H2>Pope Is Reportedly Changing Rosary</H2></NYT_HEADLINE><NYT_BYLINE version="1.0" type=" ">By REUTERS
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<B>Filed at 10:58 a.m. ET</B>
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul will mark his 24th anniversary as pontiff Wednesday by changing the rosary -- the most universal and commonly known Catholic method of praying -- for the first time in nine centuries.
According to Vatican sources, the Pope Wednesday will issue a document proposing that Catholics meditate on five more events in Christ's life in the new rosary, adding a further layer of spirituality to the age-old prayer.
Changing one of Christianity's most fundamental prayers after nearly a millennium will be a typical way for the 82-year-old Pope to crown 24 years of a pontificate marked by bold initiatives sometimes taken against the advice of aides.
He was elected on October 16, 1978 as the first non-Italian pontiff in 455 years and, at 58, was the youngest in 150 years.
Since then he has set record after record despite his frailty, making history time after time.
He is the fifth-longest serving Pope in history, and, if he lives five more months, will become the fourth-longest.
The most traveled Pope in history has made 240 trips in Italy and abroad since his election.
He has traveled 1,237,584 kilometers (768,600 miles), which, the Vatican statistics office is quick to note, is nearly 40 times the circumference of the Earth and more than three times the distance between the earth and the moon.
He has been out of Rome for precisely 946 days, 17 hours and five minutes -- amounting to some 11 percent of his pontificate.
The pope has visited 129 countries on 98 trips abroad.
In the last 12 months, more than 2.2 million people saw him in Rome, not to mention the millions who have seen him on his three foreign trips to six countries in the same period.
NO RETIREMENT DEBATE THIS TIME
Numbers apart, Wednesday's 24th anniversary will be significant as well for something that is conspicuously absent.
Nearly every anniversary or birthday in recent years has been marked by debate over whether the Pope could or should retire instead of ruling for life.
Since 1993, he has had the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a disorder of the central nervous system. His left arm trembles, often uncontrollably, and his facial muscles are stiff, leading to a mask-like expression and weakness.
But the Pope has made clear that he intends to run his one-billion member Catholic Church as long as God wants him to and his health has appeared to be more stable in recent months.
The last Pope to resign willingly was Celestine V, who stepped down in 1294. Gregory XII reluctantly abdicated in 1415 to end a dispute with a rival claimant to the Holy See.
The media has put the Pope on his deathbed or at retirement's door often in the past.
In 1994, the Sunday magazine of one of the world's major newspapers ran a cover story saying the Pope's end was in sight and named six cardinals who possibly could succeed him.
One has died and three have retired or turned 80, making them ineligible as candidates.
The Pope, meanwhile, has made 35 foreign trips since then.
</NYT_BYLINE><!--plsfield:TEXT--><NYT_TEXT>
<B>Filed at 10:58 a.m. ET</B>
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul will mark his 24th anniversary as pontiff Wednesday by changing the rosary -- the most universal and commonly known Catholic method of praying -- for the first time in nine centuries.
According to Vatican sources, the Pope Wednesday will issue a document proposing that Catholics meditate on five more events in Christ's life in the new rosary, adding a further layer of spirituality to the age-old prayer.
Changing one of Christianity's most fundamental prayers after nearly a millennium will be a typical way for the 82-year-old Pope to crown 24 years of a pontificate marked by bold initiatives sometimes taken against the advice of aides.
He was elected on October 16, 1978 as the first non-Italian pontiff in 455 years and, at 58, was the youngest in 150 years.
Since then he has set record after record despite his frailty, making history time after time.
He is the fifth-longest serving Pope in history, and, if he lives five more months, will become the fourth-longest.
The most traveled Pope in history has made 240 trips in Italy and abroad since his election.
He has traveled 1,237,584 kilometers (768,600 miles), which, the Vatican statistics office is quick to note, is nearly 40 times the circumference of the Earth and more than three times the distance between the earth and the moon.
He has been out of Rome for precisely 946 days, 17 hours and five minutes -- amounting to some 11 percent of his pontificate.
The pope has visited 129 countries on 98 trips abroad.
In the last 12 months, more than 2.2 million people saw him in Rome, not to mention the millions who have seen him on his three foreign trips to six countries in the same period.
NO RETIREMENT DEBATE THIS TIME
Numbers apart, Wednesday's 24th anniversary will be significant as well for something that is conspicuously absent.
Nearly every anniversary or birthday in recent years has been marked by debate over whether the Pope could or should retire instead of ruling for life.
Since 1993, he has had the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a disorder of the central nervous system. His left arm trembles, often uncontrollably, and his facial muscles are stiff, leading to a mask-like expression and weakness.
But the Pope has made clear that he intends to run his one-billion member Catholic Church as long as God wants him to and his health has appeared to be more stable in recent months.
The last Pope to resign willingly was Celestine V, who stepped down in 1294. Gregory XII reluctantly abdicated in 1415 to end a dispute with a rival claimant to the Holy See.
The media has put the Pope on his deathbed or at retirement's door often in the past.
In 1994, the Sunday magazine of one of the world's major newspapers ran a cover story saying the Pope's end was in sight and named six cardinals who possibly could succeed him.
One has died and three have retired or turned 80, making them ineligible as candidates.
The Pope, meanwhile, has made 35 foreign trips since then.
Of course no one on this board could guess who that was. 
