Pope John Paul II marked his 84th birthday today with the publication of a book and a routine round of audiences for visitors.
The Pontiff, who was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in a tiny flat in the poor southern Polish town of Wadowice in 1920, was spending the day in an Apostolic Palace whose rooms were painted by Renaissance masters.
The leader of one billion Roman Catholics received Portugal's prime minister and Poland's president as well as 60 participants from a symposium on human migration.
The Pope suffers from Parkinson's disease and severe arthritis and for a while last autumn could not read his own speeches. But his health has approved markedly in recent months and he plans to visit Switzerland in June and France in August.
It is the Pope's first birthday in years that has not provoked talk of a funeral or a resignation around the corner.
He is now history's third-longest serving pontiff and is sharing his memories with the world in his new book Get up. Let us go!,which went on sale with an initial printing of 500,000 copies in Italy alone.
The book is a stream of consciousness from youth to old age, from vigour to fatigue, that covers mostly the years since 1958, when he was appointed Poland's youngest bishop at age 38.