The throngs of pilgrims who attended John Paul II’s Friday funeral flowed out of Rome Saturday, leaving mainly tourists in a quiet, rainy St. Peter’s Square. The Vatican said a decision on calls to put John Paul on a fast track to sainthood would rest with the next pope.
Italian Cardinal Francesco Marchisano celebrated the second Mass for John Paul in St. Peter’s Basilica, a daily rite over nine days that began with the funeral Mass. His homily praised "this infinite humanity" that he called the late pope’s hallmark.
The Vatican also released photographs of the pope’s tomb, a white marble slab, slightly raised off the floor and tilted, with the Latin letters "Ioannes Paulus PPII", and the dates of his 26-year reign. It also bears the first two letters of Christ’s name in Greek, a common symbol with roots in early Christianity.
The grave is in the small grotto once occupied by the sarcophagus of Pope Paul XXIII, which was moved into the main floor of St. Peter’s Basilica after his 2000 beatification because so many pilgrims wanted to visit his tomb.
The unanimous vote Saturday by 130 cardinals to maintain public silence about John Paul’s successor was unprecedented. But in an era of continuous news updates and constant speculation, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls called the media ban an "act of responsibility."
He asked journalists not to ask the cardinals for interviews and said they should not take the prelates’ silence as an act of "discourtesy."
"The cardinals, after the funeral Mass of the Holy Father, began a more intense period of silence and prayer, in view of the conclave," Navarro-Valls said. "They unanimously decided to avoid interviews and encounters with the media."
At least two cardinals later turned down requests for interviews.
The lack of access to the cardinals was unlikely to stem the speculation about John Paul’s successor, with worldwide interest peaking in what could be a tight competition between reformers and conservatives.
Navarro-Valls said 115 prelates will participate in the conclave, which will begin April 18. All the cardinals are under the age of 80 — except for Cardinal Jaime L. Sin of the Philippines and Cardinal Alfonso Antonio Suarez Rivera of Mexico, who are too sick to attend.
John Paul took the name of an additional cardinal — kept secret apparently to protect him from a government that represses religious activity — to the grave.
Cardinal Karl Lehmann was quoted by the German newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung as saying race and background will play a role in the choice of the next pope, but there were no clear favorites and "probably also no firm alliances."
"One must be moved through voting, contacts and discussion to a consensus," he was quoted as saying.
John Paul was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. Some cardinals have called for a Latin American pope to reflect the huge number of Catholics in the region. Others have said the papacy should return to an Italian, while there are contenders from elsewhere in Europe, as well as from Nigeria and India.
St. Peter’s Square, which was packed during the funeral by 250,000 pilgrims and dignitaries from 138 countries, was quiet a day later under a steady rain. Cafes and souvenir shops along nearby Via della Conciliazione reopened, finally freed of the crush of pilgrims.
"I can’t talk to you," said a man hawking religious trinkets, key chains and figurines. "After 10 days without work, every second counts."
The exodus of pilgrims was wrapping up Saturday as visitors carrying backpacks, folded flags and rolled-up sleeping bags headed for train stations and parking lots on the outskirts of the city.
Few stayed around to see the sights.
"We have come here only to pray," said Ula Maciejowska, 33, who was heading home to Oswiecim, Poland. "We will come another time to shop."
Rome’s Mayor, Walter Veltroni, said Rome’s population of 2.6 million doubled over the past week, giving a lower figure than earlier police estimates of 4 million visitors. He said 1.3 million people filed past John Paul’s body.
Remarkably, the mayor said not a single incident of purse-snatching or theft was reported from Vatican City, the diminutive state that in 2002 was reported to have the highest crime rate in the world, mostly incidents such as pickpocketing.
He said Rome’s main train station and the square at Tor Vergata University, where John Paul held a huge Youth Jubilee in 2000, will be renamed after the late pope.
The Vatican post office said special "vacant see" stamps, valid only until a new pope is named, will go on sale Tuesday. Collectors were expected to snap up the 700,000 stamps, which will be sold at the post offices around St. Peter’s Square.
Cardinals in search of an identikit
VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Even before thinking about the man they want to fill the shoes of Pope John Paul II, the cardinals gathered here to elect his successor will draw up a list of the key issues facing the Roman Catholic Church.
In the light of this analysis, they will create an identikit of the man they believe best qualified to face the challenges when they begin their secret electoral conclave in the Vatican on April 18.
This is an election like no other. Campaigning is not allowed and the cardinals are not supposed to discuss specific candidates, at least in the regular formal meetings they hold each day. What goes on when groups of prelates meet in private is another matter, however.
So far, the cardinals have officially discussed only routine administrative matters, according to Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels. On Monday, he said, they will turn to "concrete problems" and make a "checkup" of the Church.
Much of the groundwork for the electoral conclave was laid at a consistory, a formal meeting of the cardinals, in 2001 when the pope asked his key advisers to reflect on the problems facing the Church in the 21st century.
John Paul raised the visibility and importance of the Church to a level never seen in modern times, became a media superstar and attracted the support of the young like no pontiff before.
The paradox is that he left a Church in crisis in much of the world. Insufficient numbers of young men are coming forward for ordination, and almost everywhere the priesthood is declining and ageing. Although the pope is said to have revitalized the Church, congregations are dwindling.
In Latin America, tens of millions have turned away from Catholicism, which is often seen as too closely identified with power and money, to join the surging fundamentalist Protestant churches.
In speaking out so categorically on birth control and other ethical issues, the pope left little freedom of action for his successor. While the Church seemed increasingly at odds with modern science, it harked back to the past by encouraging popular forms of religiosity, such as the cult of saints and an emphasis on Marian devotion that has impeded relations with the Protestant churches.
At the same time, relations with the eastern Orthodox churches are at their lowest ebb in recent memory. Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the few important world leaders to have stayed away from the pope’s funeral, evidently because of opposition by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Many clergy say that the Church has to improve the role of women, short of allowing them to enter the priesthood.
One of the most urgent issues facing the conclave is that of collegiality, or the degree to which the world’s cardinals and bishops share in the universal governance of the Church.
In becoming the most travelled pope in history, a kind of universal bishop, the pope became identified with the Church. Yet, many argue that this has led to a suffocating of local initiatives and a stifling of theological debate.
At the 2001 consistory no fewer than 155 cardinals were reported to have expressed themselves in favor of greater co-responsibility, even though all but two of the prelates entering the conclave were appointed by John Paul II.
"We need a strong pope and a strong episcopate," said Danneels, stressing the view that the Church stands on the twin pillars of the papacy and the bishops, one of the essential conclusions of the Vatican Ecumenical Council 40 years ago.
Yet if some believe the papacy has become too monarchical and the Vatican bureaucracy too centralized, the pope, who attended the council from the first day to the last, emphasized in his testament that the historic assembly had guided all his actions.
The events of the past few days have greatly raised the stakes for the conclave. The enormous crowds that arrived to pay a final homage to John Paul II may have strengthened the hand of a group of theologically powerful cardinals who need only point out of the window to support their view that the next papacy should be as much like the past one as possible.
There will clearly be another conclave camp that will argue that the papacy now needs a different set of gifts.
Nevertheless, John Paul II left a legacy that makes it possible to hazard a guess about the nature of the next pope.
He will either be an Italian who knows the world very well, or a foreigner who knows the Vatican very well and speaks excellent Italian.
He will be a great communicator and, since one of his first official tasks will be to attend a great Catholic youth festival in Cologne in July, he will have to be able to strike up an instant rapport with young people.
John Paul II seems to have destroyed for ever the notion that the pope can be a bureaucrat or a prisoner of the Vatican.
Pope’s private secretary saw ‘miracle’ – report
VATICAN CITY (AFP) — The private secretary of the late Pope John Paul II saw the pontiff perform what could be claimed as a miracle, one of the key stages to becoming a saint, Italy’s La Stampa newspaper reported Sunday.
It quoted Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz as relating how an American who was seriously ill received communion from the pope, and was cured.
The incident happened in 1998, but Dziwisz, who was John Paul II’s closest confidant for 40 years, spoke of the incident three years ago to reporters, who revealed it Sunday.
According to the report, Dziwisz told how an acquaintance had asked him if an American friend who was very ill with a brain tumor could meet the pope.
The acquaintance said the dying man had only three wishes: to see John Paul II, go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and return to the United States to die.
"I remember him very well, his face showed he was ill," Dziwisz said. "I also remember that he had no hair, which was clearly due to the chemotherapy (treatment) he was having."
The pope, at the time at his Castelgandolfo retreat outside Rome, led a private mass at which the sick man received communion, the holiest part of the Roman Catholic ritual.
Later, Dziwisz’s acquaintance rang him to say that the man had been cured, "his tumor completely disappeared in just a few hours."
In his account of the incident, Dziwisz did not speak of a miracle but of a sign of "the supreme power of God" which surpassed human understanding.
La Stampa, however, pointed to the clamor at John Paul II’s funeral Friday for him to be made a saint, and said it could be interpreted as a miracle.
If he were to be canonised — he made more saints than all his predecessors combined — his case must pass three hurdles.
First is a ruling that he has led an exemplary life. Next is beatification following proof of a miracle as a result of his intercession.
The final stage, canonisation, requires at least one more miracle.
Earlier this week, a Mexican teenager claimed the late pope had performed a "miracle" on him 15 years ago that cured his leukemia, while a nun in Colombia has said he cured her of an illness affecting her balance.
On Saturday, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls pointed out in answer to a question on sainthood that it was up to the next pope to decide.
He said any such decision lay "in the sole competency" of the next pope.
Church leaders hope for ‘open’ pope
Theologians and pastors with the Catholic Church hope that whoever will succeed Pope John Paul II would be open to discussions on controversial issues such as abortion and same sex relationship, among others.
Fr. Romeo Intengan, former provincial of the Society of Jesus, said based on his observation, almost all pastors and theologians still find abortion unacceptable.
Thus, they want a pope who would lead the Church in grasping and addressing more effectively the societal factors that pressure some women to have an abortion.
The pastors and thelogians however expressed the wish that the next pope, like John Paul II, would show compassion and concern for those who had abortion.
Regarding same sex relations, Intengan said the pastors and theologians prefer that sexual activity be in the framework of marriage and that the term "marriage" be reserved for unions between a man and a woman.
They also hope that next the pope will guide the Church to be more discerning in its choice of how promoting moral good.
On Church governance and ministry, the pastors and theologians, he said, also hope for a balanced authority for the pope.
They said the pope should also empower the synod of bishops by giving them more freedom on their deliberations and making their decisions binding and not merely recommendatory.
They also urge the next pope to give more autonomy to the regional and national episcopal conferences or assemblies of bishops, and make celibacy optional for the diocesan clergy and the admission of women to priesthood. (Leslie Ann Aquino)
