Posted on 04/10/2005 8:18:59 PM PDT by murphE
Pilgrims gazed forlornly at the third-floor window where Pope John Paul II traditionally appeared on Sundays and cardinals held to their vow of public silence ahead of next week's secret vote on a successor.
The cardinals who celebrated Masses around Rome confined their remarks to tightly scripted homilies after pledging Saturday to make no more public statements betraying their thinking before selecting a new leader for the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.
Mourning pilgrims and curious tourists lined up in a pelting rain to visit St. Peter's Basilica, where John Paul was laid to rest Friday alongside the remains of other popes through the ages.
Throughout his 26-year pontificate, John Paul gave public audiences on Wednesdays and Sundays, greeting the faithful from his third-floor window overlooking the square.
His last public appearance was March 30, three days before he died at the age of 84, when he made a dramatic attempt to say a few words but managed only a raspy sound, his mouth open and his face contorted in pain.
"It's really sad to look up the window and know he won't be there anymore," said Melica Ventura, 25, of El Salvador.
Catholics around the world packed churches Sunday in tribute to John Paul.
Even the tiny church in reclusive communist North Korea _ where the official state media was three days late to announce the pope's passing _ held a Mass attended by about 100 faithful.
At the Vatican, the grotto deep beneath the basilica holding John Paul's body remained closed, and the Holy See was expected to say Monday when it would reopen. Keeping it shut was seen as a way to empty the Eternal City of the huge throngs of pilgrims who converged on the capital for the pope's funeral.
By Sunday, most appeared to have left, but there were still large knots of hangers-on, many from John Paul's native Poland. They read Polish newspapers and formed a long line outside a Polish confessional at St. Peter's, one of several that offer the faithful a chance to confess in various languages.
Poles also gathered for Sunday Mass at St. Stanislav, a Polish church in Rome, where they made "a connection of sorrow and also of hope for a better future," said Martin Kotas of Krakow, Poland.
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the late pope's vicar for Rome, celebrated a late afternoon Mass for the pontiff at St. Peter's _ a daily rite being held over nine official days of mourning for John Paul.
In his homily, Ruini praised John Paul for, among other things, being "a real man _ one who tasted and appreciated the flavors of life to the full," including art, poetry, nature and sports.
As for the man who is to replace him, "let us not be uselessly and too humanly curious to know ahead of time who he will be," Ruini said. "Let us instead prepare to receive in prayer, trust and love he whom the Lord chooses to give us."
The lack of access to the red-robed "princes of the church" was unlikely to stem speculation about John Paul's successor, with worldwide interest peaking in what could be a tight competition between reformers and conservatives.
The 115 cardinals under 80 and therefore eligible to vote will begin meeting April 18 in the Sistine Chapel for the secret conclave to elect a new pope _ a secret and ancient tradition.
There is only one official record of each conclave, and it lies in a sealed envelope in the papal archives. In "Universi Dominici Grecis," John Paul's 1996 rules governing the conclave, he wrote:
"At the end of the election the Cardinal Camerlengo of Holy Roman Church shall draw up a document, to be approved also by the three Cardinal Assistants, declaring the result of each voting session. This document is to be given to the Pope and will thereafter be kept in a designated archive, enclosed in a sealed envelope, which may be opened by no one unless the Supreme Pontiff gives explicit permission."
John Paul II gave the cardinal electors some advice in a 2002 poem in which he urged them to look at Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" fresco on the wall behind the altar in the chapel if they need inspiration.
"Michelangelo's vision must then speak to them," John Paul wrote in the poem, which he penned as part of a volume of poetic meditations published by the Vatican in 2003.
Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, celebrated Mass in Rome's St. Mary Major Basilica, the church where John Paul appointed him archpriest. He did not give the homily _ an apparent indication of how seriously the cardinals were taking the order for secrecy.
On Monday, Law will lead the next daily Mass for the pope at St. Peter's Basilica. Leaders of the advocacy group the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said Saturday they were flying to Rome to protest, saying Law's presence was painful to clergy sexual abuse victims and embarrassing to Catholics.
Law resigned as archbishop of Boston in December 2002 after unsealed court records revealed he had allowed priests guilty of abusing children to move among parish assignments and had not notified the public.
Vatican security, meanwhile, was preparing the Sistine Chapel for the papal election, taking undisclosed measures to thwart would-be hackers or electronic eavesdroppers from listening in on the cardinals' private deliberations and getting early word of who the next pope might be.
Hundreds of messages of thanks and remembrance were posted Sunday on "Karol the Great," an Italian Web site set up in tribute to John Paul. The pope's given name was Karol Wojtyla, and references to "John Paul the Great" have gained steam amid a growing movement to make him a saint.
"Bye, Pope John Paul, you will always be the greatest, even in heaven," read one.
"From St. Peter's Square, we won't see you anymore appearing at the window to greet us, but every time we look to the sky we know you'll be there to keep watch over us," said another.
___
Associated Press reporters Aidan Lewis, Daniela Petroff and Rachel Zoll in Rome contributed to this story.
**taking undisclosed measures to thwart would-be hackers or electronic eavesdroppers from listening in on the cardinals' private deliberations and getting early word of who the next pope might be.**
Will they also wand the cardinals as they enter to see that they are not carrying any electronic devices?
VATICAN CITY What's being called "an intense period of silence and prayer" has begun at the Vatican as Cardinals prepare to select a new pope.The Cardinals say they will stop speaking publicly to protect the strict secrecy surrounding the centuries-old tradition.
The unanimous vote Saturday by 130 cardinals to maintain public silence about John Paul's successor was unprecedented. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls (wah-KEEN' nah-VAH'-roh vahlz ) called the media ban an "act of responsibility."
The Vatican also released photographs of the pope's tomb, a white marble slab, slightly raised off the floor and tilted, with his name in Latin letters.
The Vatican says a decision on calls to put John Paul on a fast track to sainthood would rest with the next pope.
Meantime, the throngs of pilgrims who attended John Paul's funeral have mostly left Rome to the tourists.
LOL!
Did we lose a couple somewhere? I understand the unfortunately named Cardinal Sin is ill and won't attend. That still leaves one remaining, I think?
Actually true...
You're right that at least two will be absent owing to illness---I believe the number was 117 originally. I don't know the identity of the other absentee.
On Monday, Law will lead the next daily Mass for the pope at St. Peter's Basilica. Leaders of the advocacy group the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said Saturday they were flying to Rome to protest, saying Law's presence was painful to clergy sexual abuse victims and embarrassing to Catholics.
The Pope's (lack of) reaction to Cardinal Law and his ilk is troubling.
From another article. Gotta love Google news.
Gotta be pretty sick to miss a conclave.... of course staying hale and hearty in your 70's is no easy matter.
"Will they also wand the cardinals as they enter to see that they are not carrying any electronic devices?"
That is actually quite a pertinent question. There are rumours that at least one of the Cardinals (Konig) was keeping the KGB informed of the progress of the conclave that elected John XXIII.
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