Pope's last word: Amen
2005-04-04 08:10
Vatican City - As his life ebbed away, Pope John Paul II stared from his bed at his open window overlooking the crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square and whispered "Amen," according to two separate accounts of his final moments.
The Vatican has not confirmed either account, nor given its own version of the end. The two accounts were similar, but it was not clear if they originated with the same source.
Father David O'Connell, president of Catholic University in Washington, DC, said on CNN's Late Edition on Sunday that a cardinal friend of his whom he did not identify told him that just before the pope died on Saturday he grasped the hand his of faithful private secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.
"And looking out the window, the curtains were not drawn, he was looking out the window. And he said, 'Amen.' And then he passed on - beautiful, touching communication, a sense that it was finished, it was over," O'Connell said.
The Italian newspaper La Repubblica quoted a Polish priest, Reverend Jarek Cielecki, as saying that the pope raised his right hand as if to offer a blessing to those reciting the rosary in the square.
"Once the faithfuls' prayer ended the pope made a huge effort and pronounced the word 'Amen,"' he said. "An instant later he died."
The Vatican said a Mass for the Sunday feast of Divine Mercy was celebrated starting at 8pm by Dziwisz, Ukrainian Cardinal Marian Jaworski and two Polish prelates.
The sacrament for the sick and dying, formerly known as last rites, was administered, along with Viaticum, or communion received when death appears imminent.
In his last hours, the pontiff lay in bed in a tangle of tubes and probes. Dziwisz did not leave his side and held the pope's hand. Around them, tearful Polish nuns recited the rosary, La Repubblica said.
The Vatican said the pope died at 9.37pm.
Present at the moment of death were his two secretaries, Dziwisz and Monsignor Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki, Cardinal Jaworski, Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, the Reverend Tadeusz Styczen, three nuns who assist the pope and their superior, Sister Tobiana Sobodka.
The pope's personal physician, Dr Renato Buzzonetti, with the two doctors on call, Dr Alessandro Barelli and Dr Ciro D'Allol, and two nurses on call, also were present.
The Vatican noted that the pope's final hours were marked by the "uninterrupted prayer of all those who were assisting him in his pious death and by the choral participation in prayer of the thousands of faithful" who for many hours had been gathered in St Peter's Square.
- AP