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Globe bids farewell to Pope John Paul II
Friday, April 8, 2005 · Last updated 2:10 p.m. PT
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| Worshippers view a live broadcast on videowalls on Pilsudski Square in Warsaw, Poland, showing the funeral of Pope John Paul II, at the Vatican on Friday April 8, 2005. Some 25,000 people packed Warsaw's Pilsudski Square, Friday, where the pope celebrated Mass before a million people during his first visit to Poland as pope in 1979. At top is a portrait of Pope John Paul II. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz) |
KRAKOW, Poland -- Poles knelt in a vast meadow Friday and sang along with Pope John Paul II's funeral, broadcast on giant screens, while Asians prayed at outdoor Masses as television linked millions around the globe to St. Peter's Square.
Some 800,000 people gathered in Krakow, the city where John Paul rose from priest to archbishop before becoming pope in 1978. Many had spent the night in the Blonie meadow after a Mass that drew 1 million to the spot where John Paul celebrated several Masses.
"This was the most wonderful man in the world, and we want to thank him for everything he has done for us, for everything he has done for the world," said Genowefa Hanusiak, a 60-year-old retired teacher.
Schools, businesses and government offices closed as Poland mourned a national hero. John Paul, who died Saturday at age 84, is credited with helping bring down communism in his homeland with his support for the Solidarity movement.
People in the Krakow meadow sang along with hymns from the service in Rome as they watched on big television screens, and applauded the homily by Cardinal Josef Ratzinger.
In the pope's small hometown of Wadowice, people in front of his baptismal church wept as they watched his coffin being carried into St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican for burial.
The funeral was telecast live to churches and gathering places worldwide - from Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral to Mexico City to a seaside park in Manila.
"He has had a huge impact on us, we are the generation of John Paul II," said Florence de la Rousserie, 27, one of 7,000 worshippers who filled Notre Dame. "He has taught us all the rules of Christian morality, of spirituality. I am moved, I am sorry."
Assemian Omer Alain of Ivory Coast, one of 500 worshippers at Sacred Heart basilica overlooking Paris from the Montmartre hill, paid tribute to the pope's efforts to bridge differences among religions.
"He was a phenomenon," the 40-year-old said. "All religions were the same to him. He made no difference between Christian or Muslim."
In Mexico, church officials conducting Mass at the stadium-style Basilica of Guadalupe carried articles of clothing the pope reportedly wore and a chair he sat in during visits to Mexico in 1999 and 2002. Before the service, a popemobile used by the pontiff made its last journey from the residence of the papal nuncio to the basilica.
Television screens were set up in churches across Africa.
In the residential districts of Congo's capital, Kinshasa, choir music floated from open windows of homes where many residents tuned their televisions and radios to the event in Rome.
In neighboring Burundi, all 134 Roman Catholic churches simultaneously celebrated memorial Masses for the pontiff.
Flags flew at half-staff in Ivory Coast, a West African country wracked by civil war. The government closed its offices and asked people to observe the day of mourning.
At Warsaw's only synagogue, Jews and Catholics prayed together.
Marek Ulinski, a Jewish community representative in the Polish capital, praised John Paul's "unprecedented steps toward bringing Jews and Catholics together and toward a dialogue with Judaism."
John Paul was the first pope to visit a synagogue and the first to pray at Judaism's holiest site, where he slipped a note into a crack in the Western Wall apologizing for the suffering of Jews over the centuries.
Throughout Asia, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs joined Roman Catholics in church services and prayers to honor the pontiff.
The funeral was shown live on television in India, where most of the 1 billion residents are Hindus. It was not televised by state TV in China, but tens of millions of Chinese who have illegal satellite dishes would have been able to watch the ceremonies.
In Tokyo, the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, urged people to continue the pontiff's legacy of peace.
"Firstly, we lost a great human being, a leader of a great religion," the Dalai Lama said. "Now it is important that we must carry all his messages and guidance with us. We must make every effort to fulfill his wishes."
In overwhelmingly Buddhist Sri Lanka, where the pope visited in 1995, the private TV station ART interrupted regular programming to broadcast the funeral live after receiving hundreds of phoned requests.
Some 14,000 people packed into a cricket ground in Adelaide, Australia, for a memorial service for the pontiff - who last year criticized Australia for its secular trends and urged them to attend Mass on Sunday.
Churches all over Jordan held special Masses, and state-run Jordan Television transmitted the funeral live.
For Poles, the pope always was more than the spiritual leader of the world's Roman Catholics.
Urszula Hurtowska brought her two children to watch the broadcast in Pilsudski Square in Warsaw, where John Paul celebrated Mass before 1 million faithful during his first papal visit to Poland in 1979.
"The pope was always an inspiration to my family," the 27-year-old said. "No one ever gave us such a feeling of pride that we were born as Poles."