Viewing line for pope tops 1 million
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VATICAN CITY — Pilgrims stood in a line more than a mile long for 12 hours in chilly pre-dawn temperatures today for a brief glimpse of Pope John Paul II's body.
Alessandro Bianchi • Associated Press
About a million mourners and curiosity seekers have already viewed the pope's body and the city of Rome is bracing for millions more pilgrims from abroad for Friday's funeral.
About 1 million people so far have waited in line to view the body of Pope John Paul II inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. The viewing will continue until the funeral on Friday morning.
City workers put up a tent city on Rome's outskirts, and thousands of police officers were dispatched to the streets to keep order. Traffic patterns on some of Rome's busiest roadways were altered to make way for buses and pedestrians streaming to St. Peter's Square.
On Monday, the first day of public viewing of the pope's body, 400,000 visited St. Peter's Basilica, and another 600,000 came yesterday, police said. The possibility that 2 million pilgrims might arrive from Poland alone had officials wondering how to cope.
"We'll have millions of people, but we do not know how many," Mayor Walter Veltroni said as he inspected the tent city, which was being equipped with cots and portable toilets. "We have to organize the city in as flexible a way as possible."
The unbroken flow of visitors toward the basilica was orderly. Volunteers handed out free water, and a few in the crowd who fainted were carried off on stretchers by first-aid workers.
At St. Peter's Square, some visitors had waited all night to get in. After the basilica was closed at 3 a.m. for almost two hours of cleaning, the crowd, left standing in the chilly air, chanted, "Open, open!"
President Bush will be among the world leaders attending the funeral, along with Laura Bush and former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The dignitaries will include the leaders of Iran and Syria, whose governments both appear on the U.S. list of countries that support terrorism.
The influx of world leaders is likely to eclipse the 105 foreign delegations who attended the funeral of Pope Paul VI in 1978, city officials said.
Such funerals are steeped in tradition, and Vatican's head of liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Piero Marini, outlined some details of the preparations. John Paul will be placed in three coffins, one of cypress within one of zinc within a third of walnut. Medallions with the date of his reign will be placed inside; previously, bronze and silver coins were put in. A written biography will be read and rolled into a metal container for burial with the pope.
He will be laid to rest with a white silk veil on his face, a rosary in his hands and his body clad in liturgical vestments and the white miter.
Marini brushed off rumors that Polish soil would be placed in the coffin, as many Poles had hoped.
John Paul's personal physician told La Repubblica newspaper that the pope "passed away slowly, with pain and suffering, which he endured with great human dignity."
"The Holy Father could not utter a single word before passing away," said Dr. Renato Buzzonetti. "Just as happened in the last days he could not speak, he was forced to silence."
Although Vatican officials have yet to read a will left by John Paul, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the pope had expressed no desire to be buried anywhere but inside St. Peter's.
He will be placed in an underground tomb that until 2001 had held the body of Pope John XXIII, whose remains were moved upstairs after he was beatified, a step toward sainthood.
Navarro-Valls and Marini told a news conference about a new wrinkle on the 100-year-old process of announcing that a new pope has been selected. This time, the traditional signal of white smoke sent up a Vatican chimney, created with the burning of ballots in a stove, will be joined by the ringing of St. Peter's bells to erase any doubt.
The addition was prompted by confusion that occurred during John Paul's selection in 1978. Several times, observers had trouble distinguishing whether the smoke was black, meaning another vote was needed, or white.
The Associated Press and Washington Post contributed to this report.
