World News 08-04-2005 Pope Laid to Rest who: Pope John Paul II what: Buried following three-hour open-air funeral service where: Vatican City when: Friday snippet: Millions of worshippers gathered in Rome on Friday morning for the funeral of Pope John Paul II, who died last Saturday at the age of 84. "At least 300,000 people filled St. Peter`s Square and spilled out onto the wide Via della Conciliazione leading toward the Tiber River," says Associated Press writer Victor L Simpson in an article published online by The Guardian, "but millions of others watched on giant video screens set up across Rome." "Tony Blair attended the funeral alongside the Prince of Wales and Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other dignitaries from at least 155 countries," says Sky News. "Among the 200 world leaders was President George Bush and French President Jacques Chirac. Also attending was the president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, and Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei - both of them Muslims." The three-hour ceremony was conducted by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, tipped by some as the Pope`s successor. "Cardinal Ratzinger said John Paul II was a `priest to the last`," reports the BBC, "who had offered his life to God and his congregation, `especially amid the sufferings of his final months`." "Throughout the service, the Pope`s wooden coffin lay in front of an altar on the steps of St Peter`s Basilica," explains the BBC. The coffin was then carried inside through the "door of death" on the left side of the main altar and, we are told that in a private ceremony, the casket would have been placed inside a further two coffins, one zinc and one oak, before being buried in St Peter`s Grotto beneath the altar. "Silver and bronze medals and a scroll dedicated to the Pope`s life were placed in the coffin," says The Mirror. There was extensive newspaper coverage in the lead-up to the ceremony, both looking back on the Pope`s influential reign, to events in his beloved native Poland, to the two-mile queue of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who filed past the Pope`s body as he lay in state, and ahead to the election of his successor by the Sacred College of Cardinals, which will begin their deliberations on April 18th. As an aside, The Guardian reported that the death of the Pope had sent travel prices sky high. "Cheap flights have passed away with the pontiff," wrote Gwyn Topham. "At time of writing (5.45pm Tuesday) passengers could still - just - get seats on Ryanair from London this weekend, but at the very un-Ryanair price of £395 return." Finally, the pope`s spiritual testament, published originally in Polish, translated into Italian and then into English by the Vatican, reveals that he considered abdication due to Parkinson`s Disease in 2000. "It has been given to me to live in a difficult century and now that is confined to the past," he wrote, "and I am in my 80th year I have to ask myself if it is not the time to say it is over." His final entry in March of that year shows he was already preparing for his death and looking back fondly on his youth. "As my earthly life draws to an end," wrote the man born Karol Wojtyla, quoted in The Mirror, "I return to my memories of the beginning, my parents, my brother, my sister who I never knew because she died before I was born, to my parish in Katowice where I was baptised, to the city I love, my friends from school, the gym, university, the time of occupation, when I worked as a labourer, from Krakow to Rome, everybody." [... more]

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