As reports of Pope John Paul II’s worsening health and his receiving “last rites” reached New York yesterday evening, Catholics spontaneously went to churches to pray for him and to reflect on the ailing pontiff’s remarkable life.

The papal spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said a urinary tract infection had caused the 84-year-old pope to develop a high fever yesterday, according to news reports from Rome. Early today, the spokesman said the pope had suffered septic shock and a heart attack, and that his condition was “very serious.”

John Paul was hospitalized twice in February. During his second stay, he underwent a tracheotomy to remedy his respiration difficulties. The pontiff now breathes and receives nutrition with the aid of tubes, after the Vatican announced that a feeding device had been inserted Wednesday in John Paul’s nose. The procedures have left him feeble and unable to speak in public. Earlier this week, for the first time in his 26-year papacy, the pope did not issue a post-Easter blessing.

While the pope, who also suffers from Parkinson’s disease, was said late yesterday to be responding to antibiotics, CNN reported that the pontiff had received the sacrament of extreme unction, also known as “last rites” or the “anointing of the sick.” Although the sacrament is usually administered to those near death, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “as soon as any one of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the fitting time for him to receive this sacrament has certainly already arrived.” Elderly Catholics demonstrating pronounced frailty are eligible for the sacrament, as are the gravely ill and those about to undergo a serious surgery. Last rites may be administered multiple times. The pope himself received them before, when he was shot by a would-be assassin in 1981.

Despite accounts of John Paul’s receiving the anointing of the sick, the Italian news agency ANSA reported that Gemelli Polyclinic, the hospital where the pope has received his recent treatments, had no plans to admit the pontiff yesterday.

As updates trickled in from Rome, New York’s Catholics were engaging in “a spontaneous outpouring of prayer” asking God for improvements in the pope’s health yesterday, a spokesman for the Diocese of Brooklyn, Frank DeRosa, said.

Mr. DeRosa said he was not aware of any planned vigils or services occasioned by the pope’s recent turn for the worse, but he said individual parishioners in Brooklyn and Queens had sent e-mail messages to John Paul wishing him well, and “all Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens had a real concern for his well-being.”

Especially given the pope’s Polish origins and the diocese’s large Polish community, Mr. DeRosa said, “There is a great affection for the Holy Father. … He is an outstanding individual.”

Were the pope to pass away soon, Mr. DeRosa said, “There would be great, great sadness over the loss of a truly outstanding Holy Father, and gratitude for all he has accomplished during his pontificate.” Mr. DeRosa said that in the event of the pope’s death, the bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn, Nicholas DiMarzio, would undoubtedly say a special Mass for John Paul at St. James Cathedral, the diocesan seat.

The archbishop of New York, Edward Cardinal Egan, “is joining all New Yorkers in praying for the pope as we have been following the developments as they unfold in the news media,” a spokesman for the archdiocese, Joseph Zwilling, said. “In parishes all over the archdiocese the Holy Father is being remembered in the prayers of the people and the priests, and that is certainly true at St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” Mr. Zwilling said.

The spokesman said there had been an increase in worshipers at the church yesterday evening as word of the pope’s condition reached New York’s faithful.

“People are coming in for a moment to pray, to light a candle, to remember our pope … who has a strong love for New York and for all New Yorkers – a love that is abundantly returned by the people of the city,” Mr. Zwilling said. John Paul visited the city in 1979 and 1995.

The pope’s suffering was particularly near to Cardinal Egan, the spokesman added. “They have through the years had a very strong and warm relationship,” Mr. Zwilling said of John Paul and the cardinal, who he said was “praying for a great leader of the church, but also praying for someone he’s personally close to.”

In the event of the pope’s death, Mr. Zwilling said, the cardinal would be called to the Vatican to help select the next pontiff, a task traditionally undertaken by the College of Cardinals in a ritual held at the Sistine Chapel. Before embarking for Italy, however, Cardinal Egan would definitely say “a series of masses at St. Patrick’s and in parishes throughout the archdiocese” for the pontiff.

At the cathedral last night, Catholic New Yorkers, too, expressed their sorrow at the “very sad” situation of their spiritual leader. A Forest Hills resident, Louis DiGioia, said he had come to St. Patrick’s to pray for John Paul.

“I just hope that when he leaves this earth he leaves comfortably,” Mr. DiGioia, 67, said. “He was a good man.”

On Fifth Avenue outside the cathedral, a Long Islander, Eileen Kaczynski, 48, said she kept coming back to St. Patrick’s in an effort to learn more about the pope’s condition.

“It’s very upsetting,” she said of his declining health. “The pope is a big symbol – he accomplished a lot in today’s society,” Ms. Kaczynski said.

“I believe there’s a better place in store for him,” she added. “If you’re raised Catholic, that’s what you’re taught.”

A Queens 19-year-old, Lizette Ortiz, said she felt John Paul’s time for accomplishment in the church was done. “Personally there comes a point when we should just say, ‘He did his job,'” she said.

While the pontiff “has done a lot for the Catholic community,” Ms. Ortiz said, she thought it was time for him to resign the papacy so he could focus on improving his health, and so that “someone in a healthy state of mind can take charge, and do more great things.”