The funeral of Pope John Paul II, one of the largest in history, began on Friday on a windswept St Peter’s Square with an open-air requiem Mass attended by world leaders, Roman Catholic cardinals and a multitude of pilgrims.
The ceremony began at 10am under a cloudy sky on St Peter’s Square, outside the basilica where more than two million mourners had filed past the pope’s body as it lay in state all this week.
To the tolling of a bell, the pope’s coffin was carried out by 12 black-garbed Vatican officials and laid on a carpet in front of the white-and-gold-draped altar.
A red-bound New Testament was opened and placed on top of the coffin, its pages flickering in the wind, as funereal music played and Catholic prelates took their seats. Cardinals’ robes whipped about in the breeze.
The crowd of mourners began by applauding the arrival of the casket, but many began weeping while a choir sang Gregorian chants.
The dean of the College of Cardinals, Joseph Ratzinger, was to officiate during the three-hour mass before the pope’s burial inside the basilica.
More than 200 world leaders, including United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, United States President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, sat on the left-hand side of the esplanade in serried ranks of mourning black.
On the other side, beyond the altar, sat red-robed cardinals, many of whom — those under the age of 80 — will meet in secret conclave on April 18 to start the process of electing the next pope.
Below the steps leading down from the esplanade, a vast and colourful throng of pilgrims, many of whom had camped out overnight, filled the square — a huge circular space ringed by a magnificent Renaissance colonnade.
The multitude stretched away along the Via de Conciliazione, the avenue leading to the River Tiber and to central Rome.
Many waved the red and white colours of the pope’s native Poland. Other national flags, such as those of Brazil, the United States and Greece, flapped in the light wind while a helicopter hovered overhead.
Asked why he had come to Rome, a compatriot of the pope, Macek Karowicz, from the Polish city of Lublin, replied: ”Why do you go to your father’s funeral? You don’t know why, you have to.”
Polish delegation
Poland’s delegation included President Aleksander Kwasniewski and his predecessor, Lech Walesa, whose Solidarity trade union movement was inspired by John Paul II to resist the then-communist regime in power in Poland.
It contributed to the fall of communism throughout eastern Europe, in what historians say is one of the pope’s greatest legacies.
Another pilgrim, Sara Nigon, a 21-year-old student from a Catholic university in Minnesota, said she wanted to honour John Paul, but added: ”I realise that this is probably one of the biggest events in history, this many people coming together to honour one man.”
About an hour before the start of the funeral, Vatican officials said that the pope’s body had been placed in a simple cypress-wood coffin inside Saint Peter’s Basilica, where it had lain in state since on Monday.
After the Mass, the coffin will be placed inside a zinc coffin, then into an oak casket, for burial in the crypt below the basilica.
Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, the official known as the cardinal camerlengo who is in temporary charge of the Vatican until a new pope is appointed, covered the pope’s face with a white silk cloth and sprinkled his body with holy water before the coffin was closed.
A small bag of coins was placed in the coffin, along with a lead tube containing a document about the life of the pope, who died on Saturday aged 84 after a 26-year reign following a long struggle against Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses.
Roman authorities estimated that as many as two million people would watch the Mass, on the square itself or on huge video screens erected around the city.
Hundreds of millions more were expected to watch the ceremony broadcast live around the world.
John Paul II will be buried alongside some of his illustrious predecessors, in a tomb marked only by a simple slab.
Testament
On the eve of the funeral, the Vatican published the pope’s final testament, which disclosed that he had considered resigning five years ago, when he reached the age of 80, as he became increasingly ill.
”May the mercy of God give me the necessary strength for this service,” he wrote in 2000.
He also revealed he had contemplated being buried in Poland, but in the end left the funeral arrangements to the College of Cardinals, which will convene on April 18 to begin the process of electing his successor.
As the ceremony began, more than 10 000 police, military and paramilitary officers, including hundreds of marksmen, were deployed around the Vatican and throughout Rome. Teams with sniffer dogs patrolled.
Police said cars would be banned throughout Rome all day on Friday and that all public offices and schools would close.
The testament, originally written in Polish and published by the Vatican in a seven-page Italian translation, confirmed his lack of materialism.
In it, he said he had left ”no property that needs to be disposed of”.
The pope, who allowed his frailty to be reported in detail and in ways that would have been unthinkable for his predecessors, advised believers to reflect on their own mortality.
”Be vigilant, because you do not know the day our Lord will come,” he wrote. — Sapa-AFP