On a visit to Rome this week, Bishop Donald Wuerl found Pope John Paul II more active and alert than he had been told to expect.

"To formulate words takes him a little longer," Wuerl said yesterday from Rome, where all bishops of Pennsylvania are making their five-year reports. "But he was clearly in command of the audience."

Wuerl has known John Paul since the late 1960s, when he was Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, Poland, and Wuerl was the secretary to Cardinal John Wright, former bishop of Pittsburgh, then head of the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy.

Wright and Wojtyla were close friends -- one of Wright's last official acts was to vote in the October 1978 conclave that elected Wojtyla pope. And it was to Wright that John Paul's thoughts turned when he met Tuesday with Wuerl, Auxiliary Bishop William Winter and two Pittsburgh seminarians.

Wuerl had been advised that he would have to do all the talking because of the pope's disability. John Paul suffers from Parkinson's disease.

"We have been told he was basically simply listening and would have great difficulty talking, so he would ask no questions," Wuerl said.

Wuerl gave John Paul a brief summary of diocesan events, highlighting the recent 250th anniversary of the first Mass in Pittsburgh.

"He reached out and touched my hand to stop me and asked about Bishop Wright," Wuerl said.

John Paul asked when Wright had died. Wuerl told him the diocese had just marked the 25th anniversary.

John Paul asked a few more questions, and "I was very pleasantly surprised to find that he was as active as he was," Wuerl said.

This week, Wuerl and the other bishops from Pennsylvania and New Jersey will meet with the heads of Vatican offices and John Paul will give a parting talk on Saturday. All meetings have gone well, said Wuerl.

While reviewing his reports on developments in the diocese, Vatican staffers have so far shown little interest in lawsuits pending against it and several other dioceses that allege a conspiracy to cover up long-ago cases of child sexual abuse by priests.

Because legal procedures vary widely around the world, those are treated as local issues, Wuerl said. Vatican officials are more interested in programs, such as religious education, that are expected of every diocese, he said.

Officials in the Congregation for Clergy were especially concerned about finding ways to support priests "because they are expected to do more because there are so few," Wuerl said.

They also discussed ways to encourage more men to pursue priesthood.

"Our reports are all in order," Wuerl said.