Mighty Join Masses to Set Record for Pope Funeral
Reuters
Date: 04-06-05
By Steve Pagani
LONDON (Reuters) - The funeral of Pope John Paul on Friday will draw the biggest gathering of the powerful and the humble in modern times.
The Pope who traveled the globe will bring together millions from around the world to witness his final journey.
Four kings, five queens, at least 70 presidents and prime ministers and more than 14 leaders of other religions will attend alongside what the Vatican expects will be two million faithful -- the largest number of pilgrims to converge on St. Peter's Square in its history.
Few occasions can attract President Bush to the same event as President Mohammad Khatami of Iran -- the country Bush accused of being part of "an axis of evil."
Few occasions can bring together leaders of the world's religions in prayer like the funeral of the man who preached respect and reconciliation among faiths.
The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, postponed his wedding day for 24 hours to attend the ceremony.
Funerals of respected world leaders can leave their mark on history and the funeral mass to honor the third longest reigning Pontiff will be no exception.
Millions of Iranians crowded into Tehran for the funeral of Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 but few world dignitaries were there.
The funeral in 1980 of Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito brought together for the first time Cold War warriors such as Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and Britain's Margaret Thatcher, but none of the masses from around the world descended on Belgrade.
Pope John Paul was the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics and head of state of Vatican city state.
Rome authorities are taking no chances over security and threw up a defense shield, including a no-fly zone and anti-aircraft missiles.
More than 100 countries were expected to be represented in St. Peter's Basilica, among them more than 50 heads of state.
Catholic kings and queens will join Protestant and Muslim monarchs. Among the notable will be King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain -- heirs of the so-called "Catholic Kings" of the 15th century who sent their conquistadors to colonize the New World for their popes and their Catholic God.
Roman Catholicism remains the biggest faith among Latin American nations and most of their presidents were headed for the Vatican. Brazil is the world's most populous Catholic country and some believe the next pope could be Latin American.
Fidel Castro of Marxist Cuba, who met the Pope in 1998 and called him an "indefatigable warrior" for peace, is sending a key figure -- his national assembly president -- and paid the Pope the honor of attending a mass in Havana.
MAN OF PEACE
The Pope's pleas against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq earned him praise and respect in the Muslim world as a man of peace.
Diplomacy apart, the presence of Khatami, an Islamic cleric, at the funeral may also be governed by the drive he shared with the Pope for inter-faith dialogue.
Khatami, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie will be sitting in a Christian basilica with the President of the Jewish state, Moshe Katsav.
The boy who grew up with Jewish friends in his native Poland to become Pope was mourned as a man who had done more than any other to reconcile the Christian and Jewish faiths after centuries of enmity.
Neither of Israel's chief rabbis will attend the funeral as they are preparing the Jewish state for Passover but they were sending the director-general of their joint office to pay respects.
In life, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexiy II, declined to meet the Pope and no one expected him to travel to Rome. But, as a mark of both men, the patriarch's office said it was prepared to put aside the rift stemming from the Great Schism of 1054 between Eastern and Western branches of Christianity and send a delegation.
They will be joined by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Turkey's Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II and a host of others.
John Paul's funeral will be the first accessible to many pilgrims -- not least because cheap air fares and better roads and rail will make it possible to reach St. Peter's in time.
But more significantly with the fall of the Berlin Wall, it will be the first time that people across Europe will be free to attend the funeral of a pope. Before that, travel restrictions made it virtually impossible for many humble pilgrims.
Hundreds of thousands from the former East Bloc -- not least masses of his compatriots from Poland -- will be heading to the Vatican to honor the Pope who played a role in communism's demise.
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