Pope John Paul II dies

VATICAN CITY: Pope John Paul II, the Polish pontiff who led the Roman Catholic Church for more than a quarter century and became history’s most-travelled pope, died yesterday in his Vatican apartment. He was 84. “The angels welcome you,” Vatican TV said after the announcement came from papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. “The Holy Father, John Paul II, died at 9.37 pm (1937GMT) in his private apartment. All procedures foreseen in the Apostolic Constitution ‘Universi Dominici Gregis,’ promulgated by John Paul II on February 22, 1996, have been activated,” his statement said. It was distributed to journalists via e-mail. John Paul expired as cardinals were leading some 70,000 people at St Peter’s Square in prayers for him in his “last journey.”

Bells tolled at the Vatican and across Rome, and Vatican, Italian and European Union flags were being lowered to half-staff across the capital.  The pope died after suffering heart and kidney failure following two hospitalisations in as many months. Just a few hours earlier, the Vatican had said he was in “very serious” condition but responded to members of the papal household. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican No 2 official, immediately led the tearful crowd in St Peter’s Square in prayers for the dead pope. Immediately after the news was announced to the square by Undersecretary of State Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, there was complete silence. The crowd seemed stunned. A few minutes later, some people broke out in applause in appreciation for the pope — in an Italian tradition in which mourners often clap for important figures. Others wept. “Dearest brothers and sisters, at 9.37 pm the Holy Father returned to the house of the Father,” Sandri said. “We all feel like orphans this evening,” he said.

A few people started streaming out of the square, but other stayed put and stared at the pope’s windows, where the light still burned. A seminarian slowly waved a large red and white Polish flag draped with a black band of mourning. Prelates invited the faithful in the square to keep silent so they might “accompany the pope in his first steps into heaven.” After the crowd started recovering from stunned silence, a group of youths started singing, “Hallelujah, he will rise again,” while one of them strummed a guitar. Later, pilgrims joined in singing the “Ave Maria.” “He was a marvellous man. Now he’s no longer suffering,” Concetta Sposato, a pilgrim who heard the pope had died as she was on her way to St Peter’s to pray, said tearfully.

“My father died last year. For me, it feels the same,” said Elisabetta Pomacalca, a 25-year-old Peruvian who lives in Rome. “I’m Polish. For us, he was a father,” said pilgrim Beata Sowa. Since his surprise election in 1978, John Paul travelled the world frequently, staunchly opposing communism in his native Poland and across the Soviet bloc but also preaching against rampant consumerism, contraception and abortion. John Paul was a robust 58-year-old when the cardinals stunned the world and elected the cardinal from Krakow, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. In his later years, however, John Paul was the picture of frailty, weighed down by ailments that included Parkinson’s disease and crippling knee and hip ailments. Although he kept up his travels, he was too weak to kiss the ground any more.

The pope also survived a 1981 assassination attempt, when a Turkish gunman shot him in the abdomen. A fierce enemy of communism, he set off the sparks that helped bring down communism in Poland, from where a virtual revolution spread across the Soviet bloc. No less an authority than former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said much of the credit went to John Paul. At the same time, John Paul was no friend of Western lifestyles, warning against rampant consumerism and casual sex. John Paul’s passing set in motion centuries of tradition that mark the death of a pope. The Vatican chamberlain formally verified the death, which in the past was done by tapping a pope’s forehead three times with a silver hammer.

The Vatican summoned the College of Cardinals, and the Vatican chamberlain destroyed the symbols of the pope’s authority: his fisherman’s ring and dies used to make lead seals for apostolic letters. John Paul’s funeral will be held within four to six days. The Vatican has declined to say whether he left instructions for his funeral or burial. Most popes in recent centuries have asked to be buried in the crypts below St. Peter’s Basilica, but some have suggested the first Polish-born pope might have chosen to be laid to rest in his native country. Hospitalised twice in the past two months after breathing crises, and fitted with a breathing tube and a feeding tube, John Paul had become a picture of suffering.