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Monday, April 4, 2005
Partial list of dignitaries attending funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dignitaries planning to attend Pope John Paul II’s funeral:
ALBANIA: President Alfred Moisiu, Prime Minister Fatos Nano.
ARGENTINA: Vice President Daniel Scioli, Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa.
AUSTRIA: President Heinz Fischer, Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, Parliament Speaker Andreas Khol.
BELGIUM: King Albert II, Queen Paola, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. BRITAIN: Prince Charles, Prime Minister Tony Blair.
BULGARIA: President Georgi Parvanov.
CHILE: Foreign Minister Ignacio Walker.
CZECH REPUBLIC: President Vaclav Klaus, Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda.
ESTONIA: President Arnold Ruutel.
FINLAND: Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.
FRANCE: President Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette.
GERMANY: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, President Horst Koehler.
HUNGARY: President Ferenc Madl, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany.
IRELAND: President Mary McAleese, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.
LATVIA: President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
LEBANON: President Emile Lahoud, Prime Minister Omar Karami
LIECHTENSTEIN: Prince Hans-Adam II, Princess Marie, Prince Nicholas.
LITHUANIA: President Valdas Adamkus.
LUXEMBOURG: Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.
POLAND: President Aleksander Kwasniewski and his wife, Prime Minister Marek Belka, former President Lech Walesa.
PORTUGAL: European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, President Jorge Sampaio.
ROMANIA: Romanian President Traian Basescu, Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu.
RUSSIA: Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov; Metropolitan Kirill, foreign minister for the Russian Orthodox Church.
SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO: Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova.
SLOVAKIA: President Ivan Gasparovic, Parliament Chairman Pavol Hrusovsky. SPAIN: Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.
SWITZERLAND: President Samuel Schmid.
SYRIA: President Bashar Assad.
UNITED STATES: President George Bush and his wife, Laura.
VENEZUELA: Foreign Relations Minister Ali Rodirguez, Planning Minister Jorge Giorda
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Rome building massive camp for pilgrims
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rome is bracing for a crush of up to 2 million mourners expected to pay tribute to the pope who reigned firmly over his flock for 26 years with unbending loyalty to its ancient precepts, resisting calls from modernizers for the church to adapt.
A massive camp site is being set up on the outskirts of the city to house pilgrims, and city hall has increased the number of bus runs and prepared bus shuttles to and from the capital’s two main railway stations
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Poll: Changes needed in Catholic Church
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Most Americans want the next pope to work for changes in Roman Catholic Church policies to allow priests to marry and women to join the priesthood. And they want more done to combat sexual abuse by priests, an AP-Ipsos poll found.
A solid majority of Americans, and Catholics, in the country are calling for the changes even while saying they widely admire Pope John Paul II, who favored the traditional policies.
”He crossed so many boundaries, opened doors to many governments,” said Joseph Riess, a Catholic businessman from Vienna, Va. ”But I think it’s time for changes.”
Just over half of Americans, 51 percent, and almost three-fourths of Catholics say John Paul, who died Saturday, will be remembered as one of the greatest popes, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs.
But they would like to see the next pope initiate changes. About two-thirds said priests should be allowed to marry and almost that many said they want women in the priesthood. A majority of Catholics supported both steps.
More than four in five Americans — and about the same number of Catholics — said they want to see the next pope do more to address the problem of priests sexually abusing children.
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President, first lady will attend funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President Bush and his wife will attend Pope John Paul II’s funeral, the White House said Monday.
Press secretary Scott McClellan said the White House would announce the rest of the delegation that will attend with Bush. He said with all the countries planning to send high-level representatives to the funeral, the United States will keep its delegation small.
The Bushes probably will leave Wednesday for the Friday funeral, although plans were still being finalized.
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Turk who shot pope joins in mourning
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II, said from his Turkish prison cell Monday that he was joining in mourning the death of the pontiff.
The pope met with Agca in an Italian prison in 1983 and forgave him for the shooting. Agca was extradited to Turkey in 2000 after almost 20 years behind bars in Italy. He is serving a 17-year prison sentence in Istanbul for earlier crimes in Turkey.
”I participate in the mourning of my Christian Catholic people,” Agca said in a written statement in Italian faxed to The Associated Press through his lawyers. He referred to the pope as ”my spiritual brother” in the letter.
Agca has given conflicting reasons for his 1981 assassination attempt against the pope in St. Peter’s Square and has sometimes suggested his actions were part of God’s plan.
”The divine plan has come to its conclusion,” Agca said in his handwritten letter.
Suspicions that the Turk acted on behalf of the former Soviet bloc, which feared that the Polish-born pope would help trigger anti-communist revolts, linger despite denials by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
The pope has long said he believed the hand of the Virgin Mary deflected Agca’s bullet.
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Memorials stand in St. Peter’s Square
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Impromptu memorials to Pope John Paul II sprang up Monday in the center of St. Peter’s Square, transforming street lights into freeform sculptures of flowers, icons and farewell notes pinned up with candle wax.
One note carried a small Nigerian flag and a recent photo of John Paul II lifting his hands to bless the faithful. ”Pope John Paul II, we love you. May your gentle soul rest in perfect peace,” it said.
Others were scrawled on train tickets or scraps of tissue, tucked among pictures of saints and rosaries and accompanied by children’s drawings. ”Goodbye, father, hero, friend,” said one letter written in a childlike hand. Flowers poked out from holes in the iron lamp posts, which surround an obelisk in the center of the square.
People arrived to see John Paul’s body, which was to go on public display in St. Peter’s Basilica later Monday, two days after the pontiff’s death. The body lay in state on Sunday for prelates, ambassadors and other dignitaries.
”We thought it was right to come because he has always loved us young people, and we want to pay back what he has done for us,” said Monica Favalli, part of a group from northern Italy who came to pay their respects to the pope.
At the basilica, the Swiss Guards wore black cloaks instead of their usual red and gold uniforms.
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Some want John Paul’s heart buried in Poland
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some officials in Krakow, where Pope John Paul II was archbishop, hope his heart can be buried in their cathedral alongside Poland’s medieval kings and saints, but a senior cardinal cast doubt on that happening.
”We would like the heart of the greatest Krakovian and the greatest Pole to rest at Wawel (Cathedral),” Mayor Jacek Majchrowski was quoted as saying Monday by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. ”But the rules are set by the church and we will respect them.”
The heart of another great Pole, composer Frederic Chopin, rests in an urn in Warsaw’s Holy Cross Church, although the rest of his body is buried at Paris’s Pere Lachaise Cemetery.
The College of Cardinals said Monday the pope’s remains would be interred in the grotto of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Asked if this ruled out sending his heart to Poland, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls did not directly reply, saying he was merely transmitting information on decisions taken by the cardinals.
In an interview with Rzeszpospolita daily, Krakow’s Cardinal Franciszek Macharski said the age of dismembering the corpses of great figures had passed.
”There was once this Romantic custom that after death parts of the body of known and loved people be placed in important places,” Macharski said. ”This tradition is no longer ours. Respect for the human body says that it ought to be laid in a grave.”
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Charles moves wedding to Saturday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Prince Charles’ wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles will be delayed a day so it does not coincide with the funeral for Pope John Paul II, Charles’ office said Monday.
The heir to the throne will represent Queen Elizabeth II at the Vatican funeral on Friday, the originally planned day for the wedding, the prince’s office added.
Prince Charles and Parker Bowles made the decision to move the wedding to Saturday after he cut short his Swiss skiing holiday Monday, a spokesman for his Clarence House office said.
Charles returned to attend a Monday afternoon memorial service for the pope at London’s Westminster Cathedral, which Parker Bowles also planned to attend, the spokesman said. She will not be going to the pope’s funeral, he added.
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College of Cardinals convenes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The College of Cardinals convened Monday ahead of a secret vote later this month to elect a new pope, with the red-capped prelates planning Pope John Paul II’s funeral and arranging the destruction of his papal ring.
The meeting at the Bologna Hall of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace was the first gathering of the world’s Roman Catholic cardinals since the pontiff’s death. They were to open any final documents John Paul may have prepared for them and were to set a date for this week’s funeral.
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Politicking vies with piety
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An elite group of pilgrims flocked to Rome on Monday, princes of the church who have started sizing each other up and expressing their views before they closet themselves in the Sistine Chapel to elect one among them as successor to John Paul II.
Some of the cardinals flew to Rome while John Paul was still dying, even at the risk of seeming too eager to be visible. Others lingered at home to comfort the faithful in their diocese before heading to the Vatican for the funeral and the secret voting sessions of the conclave.
Either way, politicking vied with piety as the cardinals spoke before congregations in cathedrals or gaggles of microphones at airports.
”Only the Holy Spirit knows who the successor is to His Holiness, although it makes me happy that I’m mentioned so that the world knows that good things exist in Honduras,” said Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa. He is a ”papabile,” Italian for someone who has pope potential.
Being in pole position might or might not be an advantage. An Italian bishop, Libero Tresoldi, reminded reporters in Milan’s Gothic cathedral about the oft-quoted proverb warning cardinals against overconfidence: ”He who enters a conclave as pope leaves as a cardinal.”
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