Catholic clergymen view the body of Pope John Paul II as it lay in state in the Clementina hall at the Vatican yesterday. - Reuters
VATICAN CITY (AP):
FINALLY AT rest after years of debilitating disease, Pope John Paul II's body lay in state yesterday in the frescoed Apostolic Palace as the world mourned his passing and the Vatican prepared for the ritual-filled funeral and conclave that will elect his successor.
An estimated 100,000 people turned out for a morning Mass and thousands more tourists, Romans, young and old - kept coming throughout the day, a sea of humanity filling the broad boulevard leading to St. Peter's Basilica. They clutched rosaries and newspaper photos of John Paul as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in St. Peter's Square to pray for the soul of "our beloved John Paul."
WEEPING
"Today, while we weep for the departure of the pope who left us, we open our hearts to the vision of our eternal destiny," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's No. two official, said in his homily.
"For a quarter century, he brought the Gospel of Christian hope to all the piazzas of the world, teaching all of us that our death is nothing but the passage toward the homeland in the sky," he said.
Bells tolled and pilgrims wept in remembrance of the Poland-born pope, who reigned for longer than all but two of his predecessors and was credited with helping bring down communism in Europe and spreading a message of peace around the world.
OVERNIGHT VIGIL
The Vatican said the pontiff died at 9:37 p.m. (1937GMT; 2:37 p.m. Jamaica time) Saturday of septic shock and cardio-circulatory collapse. He was 84.
The mourning began with an overnight vigil in St. Peter's Square after the world learned of the death of the pontiff in his studio apartment.
Early yesterday, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the late pope's vicar for Rome, issued a formal announcement of John Paul's death to the people of Rome, in keeping with Vatican tradition.
"John Paul held his hand to us young people," said 21-year-old Alessio Bussolotti, who drove to Rome yesterday morning with his fellow Boy Scouts from the Italian city of Ancona. "Now we have to give him ours."
The written text of Sodano's homily called the late pope 'John Paul the Great', a title usually designated for popes worthy of sainthood, such as Gregory the Great and Leo the Great. Sodano did not use the title when he delivered the homily, and there was no explanation.
