Pope John Paul II was rushed to the hospital urgently Tuesday night after he suffered inflammation of the throat and had difficulty breathing while battling the flu, the Vatican said.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Pope John Paul II was hospitalized "mainly as a precaution."

It's possible his Parkinson's disease has made his condition more serious and his breathing more labored.

A Vatican official told the press on condition of anonymity that the pontiff, who has had the flu since Sunday, had apparently suffered a "breathing crisis."

A close member of the pope's staff, American Archbishop James Harvey, said the pope had congestion and a slight fever during the day.

A State Department official, who asked not to be identified, said the pope would be held overnight for observation but there was no indication he was gravely ill.

Cars with Vatican license plates were speeding toward the Catholic hospital, where the pope had been taken.

It was the same Rome Catholic teaching hospital he was taken to when he was shot in the abdomen in 1981 and at which he has undergone several operations.

Source: Agencies