M A I N   N E W S

Poor and powerful bid final goodbye to Pope

Vatican City, April 8
Pope John Paul II was laid to rest in Saint Peter’s Basilica today after an elaborate and emotional funeral rite attended by one million people and watched by countless others around the world.

Vatican officials said the Pope’s body, encased in three caskets, was buried in the crypt close to the spot believed to contain the remains of Peter, the apostle chosen by Jesus Christ to found his church almost 2,000 years ago.

The Polish-born Pope died on Saturday aged 84 after a 26-year reign, the third longest in history.

At one point the mass seemed about to turn into a demonstration of Polish fervour when a large section of the crowd interrupted the ritual with calls for the immediate canonisation of the pope.

A reporter on a roof overlooking the square estimated that 10,000 persons held red-and-white Polish flags and banners reading “Santo Subito” (sainthood at once) and broke into a chant of “Santo, Santo” lasting about seven minutes.

During his homily, the officiating priest, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said that John Paul II had borne “a burden which transcends merely human abilities.”

The poor and powerful joined in a final farewell to Pope John Paul on Friday at a momentous Vatican funeral watched by hundreds of millions of people across the world he had travelled.

Flags and banners, many from the Pope’s native Poland, bobbed in the ocean of humanity that stretched from St. Peter’s Square for as far as the eye could see.

The last journey of a man who travelled the equivalent of 30 times the circumference of the earth during his reign, was his shortest — a few hundred metres (yards) from church to crypt.

Nearly 7 hours after the elaborate funeral rites had started, John Paul was laid to rest under the ground in an alcove of the crypt. It was 2:20 p.m. (1220 GMT).

Five kings, six queens and at least 70 presidents and prime ministers attended the funeral service, paying homage to a Pope who helped bring down the Iron Curtain, urged unity between faiths and stamped a strict orthodoxy on his own Church.

Among 2,500 dignitaries of all faiths and races who attended were U.S. President George W. Bush, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Britain’s Prince Charles and various Middle East leaders.

The Vatican funeral capped a week that saw millions of faithful queue for up to 15 hours to file past his body. The first non-Italian pope in 455 years died last Saturday after a decade of suffering and sickness, unleashing an outpouring of grief within the Roman Catholic Church and beyond. — AFP, Reuters