Historic crowd at Pope’s funeral

VATICAN CITY: The largest funeral in modern history took place in Rome on a windy, cool morning. Yesterday’s funeral for Pope John Paul II began nine days of mourning for one of the Catholic Church’s longest serving pontiffs. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a Vatican theologian with a reputation for coldly cracking down on dissent, moved mourners to tears yesterday with a homily from the heart that painted an image of John Paul II benevolently looking down on St Peter’s Square from a window in heaven. He was one of the pope’s closest friends and advisers. “We can be certain that from the window of God’s house he (Karol Wojtyla) sees us and blesses us,” Ratzinger told the crowds who intermittently broke into applause to mark their admiration for the pope.

John Paul II was buried, according to his wishes, underground in the crypt of St Peter’s basilica where 147 popes have been laid to rest before him, along with what are thought to be the bones of St Peter himself. He left no personal belongings and asked in his last written testament for his personal notes to be burnt. While an unprecedented number of pilgrims and world leaders converged on the Vatican for his funeral, no relatives were present. The 84-year-old pontiff had outlived his entire immediate family. The Circus Maximus, the ancient Roman stadium, served as a makeshift hostel for thousands of pilgrims who arrived to pay last respects to Pope John Paul II.

Huge video screens set up there and around the Eternal City carried yesterday’s funeral service live. Poles turned out by the tens of thousands for Pope John Paul II’s funeral yesterday, flooding St Peter’s Square with their national flags and huddling around portable radios to hear a Polish translation of the ceremony. Their collective show of grief and patriotism marked the end of an era for the pope’s native country. John Paul’s death set off a massive outpouring of grief in his native land, where he is revered as a national hero for his role in ending communism, and as a rare moral authority in a land gripped by corruption. His 26-year papacy served, too, as a source of pride to a nation spiritually worn down by the suffering of World War II and subsequent decades of Soviet dominance.

Amid Latin chants, incense fumes and the purple, gold and scarlet pomp of the biggest funeral in Vatican history, some of the world’s most powerful leaders found themselves sitting within yards of their most dire opponents, in a tightly packed VIP stand roughly the size of a tennis court. US President George W Bush sat far from  one leader of his so-called axis of evil, Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami, but only two wives away from France’s President Jacques Chirac, one of the loudest opponents of the Iraq war. Nearby sat Brazil’s left-wing leader, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, another outspoken critic of Bush whose country has declared it will fingerprint Americans entering their territory just as the US now does with many citizens from the developing world.

Britain’s Tony Blair listened attentively to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s Mass knowing that only a few seats away was Robert Mugabe — who accuses Britain of leading a plot to control Zimbabwe and hailed his recent election victory as an “anti-Blair” vote. In one week after his death, Pope John Paul II was able to draw Arab leaders to share a platform with Israel’s president and foreign minister, a sight Middle Eastern diplomats often take years to accomplish.

“If a request has been made for certain leaders not to have to meet or even cross eyes, the Vatican diplomatic machine will have done what it can to avoid it,” said Sergio Romano, a leading political analyst and former Italian ambassador to Moscow. “But for many, this extraordinary meeting could be an opportunity to hold secret meetings that could never be organised in a public way. Sometimes a moment like this can provide the personal contact that opens doors between countries locked in political stalemate.” But yesterday’s funeral was a “global event” no great leader could afford to be seen to miss.