John Paul died at 9:37 p.m. (9:37 a.m. Hawai'i time) in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace on a clear and cool night. The first indication of the pope's passing was the illumination of several windows in his private quarters overlooking St. Peter's Square. An e-mail announcement followed. A half-hour later, the bells of all of Rome's churches rang out.

The news evoked an outpouring of emotion worldwide. President Bush called John Paul "a champion of human freedom" and "a good and faithful servant of God. ... We're grateful to God for sending such a man, a son of Poland."

The Vatican said today that the pope's body was expected to be brought to St. Peter's Basilica no earlier than Monday afternoon.

The College of Cardinals is to meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow in its first gathering before a secret election this month to choose a successor to John Paul. The cardinals were expected to set a date for his funeral, which the Vatican said was likely to be between Wednesday and Friday.

A Japanese Catholic prayed for Pope John Paul II during Mass early this morning at St. Ignatius Church in Tokyo. Shizuo Kambayahi • Associated Press

It began with a solemn parade of the College of Cardinals down the steps of the basilica as a choir sang. Each cardinal, dressed in flowing white robes with a golden cross on the chest, kissed the altar before taking his seat.

The pope had slipped in and out of consciousness throughout yesterday. The last medical bulletin from the Vatican said he had developed a sudden fever in late morning. The pope had suffered from Parkinson's disease for years; his death was the culmination of medical setbacks that began in early February when influenza forced him into a hospital.

Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said that the pontiff received the Viaticum, a rite for the approach of death, during an 8 p.m. bedside Mass and died surrounded by his closest Polish aides and household staff. The only Italians present were three physicians and two nurses.

To the end, even in visible pain, unable to walk and finally unable to speak, he used his physical presence as a teaching tool. On Easter Sunday, he sat at his apartment window for 12 minutes and tried to deliver a blessing to worshippers below. Failing, he brushed away aides who tried to wheel him from the window before he was ready.

Vatican officials yesterday said he was still trying to send messages. Navarro-Valls said the pope's advisers had "reconstructed" the words he wished to utter to young Catholics holding a vigil for him in St. Peter's Square. "I was looking for you. You have come for me, and I thank you," he was quoted as saying.

Achille Silvestrini, a cardinal in charge of relations with churches of the eastern Orthodox tradition, visited the pope yesterday morning and said afterward: "His slow death throes proceed. I found him relaxed, placid, serene. He was in his bed. He was breathing without labor."

By 11 p.m., with the death a fact, St. Peter's Square was filled to overflowing. Rome's bells tolled again as prayers were repeated and hymns sung. "He preached his last sermon through his death," said Gerald O'Collins, a theology professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

The Vatican effectively invited Catholics to follow the pope's final days up close, sharing the experience of his death as a way of expressing his philosophy of life, which was to be lived fully, morally and actively to the end.