ROME (AP) – A frail Pope John Paul II reappeared yesterday at a window of the hospital treating him for his latest health crisis, giving the world its second glimpse of him since he was rushed back to the clinic with breathing trouble 11 days ago.

Wearing his white vestments, the 84 year-old pope waved and made the sign of the cross to more than 500 cheering and weeping pilgrims who gathered in the damp chill at a small square with a view of his 10th-floor suite at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital.

The pope looked alert as he sat behind the closed window, repeatedly raising his arms to bless the crowd, but he did not speak during the brief three-minute appearance.

John Paul has been undergoing breathing and speech therapy at the clinic a few kilometres (miles) from the Vatican after undergoing surgery on February 24 to insert a breathing tube in his windpipe.

“He speaks through his suffering,” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a German who runs a powerful Vatican office that deals with issues of Catholic doctrine, told Italy’s RAI television.

With the pope able to say only a few words with difficulty, the Vatican tapped Archbishop Leonardo Sandri – an Argentine from the Holy See’s secretary of state office who has become the pope’s official voice for the public – to again read out the Sunday prayer known as the Angelus and deliver the blessing to believers gathered at St Peter’s.

“Again today I would like to renew my expression of gratitude for all those signs of affection that have reached me,” the pope said in a greeting read out by Sandri.

“I am thinking, in particular, of the numerous cardinals, priests and groups of faithful, of ambassadors and of the ecumenical delegations that have come to the Gemelli Polyclinic in these days,” John Paul’s message said.

“I desire to give special recognition for the closeness of believers of other religions, chiefly Jews and Muslims. Some of them have wanted to come and pray here at the hospital. This for me is a comforting sign, for which I give thanks to God.”

Enthusiastic Catholics danced on St Peter’s Square as the pope was shown on a giant video screen.