Pope John Paul II dies
2005-04-02 21:56
Paris and Rome - As Pope John Paul II lost his long and public battle with failing health, his anguished flock around the world prayed for him.
Announcing the pope's death, his spokesperson, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said: "The Holy Father died this evening at 9:37pm in his private apartment. All the procedures outlined in the apostolic Constitution 'Universi Dominici Gregis' that was written by John Paul II on February 22, 1996, have been put in motion."
The outpouring of concern - from Protestants, Muslims and Jews - spread as far as Pakistan, Iraq and even China, where Roman Catholics make up but a small percentage of its 1,3 billion people.
"He is teaching us the most important lesson: the lesson of dying," said a priest in the southern Polish town where the pope was born 84 years ago.
At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, worshippers and tourists lit candles beneath a 1997 photo showing a vigorous pope before Parkinson's disease and other ailments started taking their toll in public appearances marked by pain.
Catholic churches held special Masses and worshippers lit candles before photographs of the pontiff - the first non-Italian pope in centuries, whom many credited with transforming the church.
In St Mary's basilica in the southern Polish town of Wadowice, the pope's birthplace, the Reverend Krzysztof Glowka told a packed church: "We are here to be with John Paul in his agony, to experience, together with him, this great mystery of life that is death."
He is at rest
British Bishop Alan Hopes told 400 people at London's Westminster Cathedral: "He has said he has been searching for God all his life and now He has come to him. I think he is at rest in that."
Worshippers filled churches in Croatia and Slovenia and lit candles in a basilica in Algiers. They prayed for the pope in Moscow, Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe.
In Calcutta, India, nuns from Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity held a special prayer session. President Alejandro Toledo took communion during a special mass in Lima, Peru.
By morning, Brazil's biggest cathedral in Sao Paulo was packed for special masses on Saturday.
Hundreds of worshippers joined in masses and vigils elsewhere in Brazil, the world's largest Catholic nation.
In the small northern Iraq town of Tel Kief, a crumbling village of mud-brick homes bearing crosses above entryways, Chaldean Catholics offered prayers for the pope as US Army soldiers patrolled the narrow streets outside.
"We feel very bad about the pope, but this is the choice of God," said Adel Changu, a 55-year old Chaldean shopkeeper. "The pope represents love for everyone. He is a link between God and people."
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia praised the pope for standing by the Palestinian people.
"He always had positive and just positions toward the rights of the Palestinian people," Qureia said in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
- AP