Posted on 04/07/2005 12:43:08 PM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Kings, queens and heads of state and government will join pilgrims for the funeral of Pope John Paul on Friday in what is expected to be the biggest gathering at the Vatican in its history.
President Bush will head the delegation from the United States, the White House said. Britain's Prince Charles postponed his wedding for a day in order to attend.
The following is a list of some of the dignitaries who have said they will attend:
AFGHANISTAN - President Hamid Karzai
ALBANIA - President Alfred Moisiu, former presidents Sali Berisha and Rexhep Meidani, Prime Minister Fatos Nano
ARGENTINA - Vice President Daniel Scioli, Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa
ARMENIA - Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan
AUSTRALIA - Governor-General Michael Jeffery, who represents Britain's Queen Elizabeth as Australia's head of state
AUSTRIA - President Heinz Fischer, Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel
AZERBAIJAN - Prime Minister Artur Rasizade
BANGLADESH - Food and Disaster Management Minister Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusuf
BELGIUM - King Albert II and Queen Paola, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt
BENIN - Foreign Minister Rogatien Biaou
BOSNIA - Chairman of the state presidency, Borisav Paravac
BOLIVIA - President Carlos Mesa
BRAZIL - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
BRITAIN - Prince Charles, Prime Minister Tony Blair
BULGARIA - President Georgi Parvanov
CAMEROON - President Paul Biya, Minister of External Relations Laurent Esso
CANADA - Prime Minister Paul Martin
CHILE - Foreign Minister Ignacio Walker. President Ricardo Lagos cannot attend as his 108-year-old mother is very ill.
COLOMBIA - Vice President Francisco Santos
COSTA RICA - President Abel Pacheco, Deputy Foreign Minister Marco Vinicio Vargas
CROATIA - President Stjepan Mesic, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader
CUBA - National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon
CYPRUS - President Tassos Papadopoulos
CZECH REPUBLIC - President Vaclav Klaus, Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda
DENMARK - Queen Margrethe II and Prince Consort Henrik, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - President Joseph Kabila, Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba
ECUADOR - President Lucio Gutierrez or Foreign Minister Patricio Zuquilanda
EGYPT - Culture Minister Farouk Hosni
EL SALVADOR - Foreign Minister Francisco Lainez
ESTONIA - President Arnold Ruutel
EUROPEAN UNION - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hubner, Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini and External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Also European Parliament president Josep Borrel
FINLAND - Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen
FRANCE - President Jacques Chirac
GEORGIA - Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili
GERMANY - President Horst Koehler, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
GREECE - President Karolos Papoulias
GUATEMALA- President Oscar Berger, Foreign Minister Jorge Briz Abularach
HONDURAS - President Ricardo Maduro
HUNGARY - President Ferenc Madl, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, opposition leader Viktor Orban
INDIA - Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat
INDONESIA - Social Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab, Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni
IRAN - President Mohammad Khatami
IRELAND - President Mary McAleese, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern
ISRAEL - President Moshe Katsav, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
ITALY - President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
JAPAN - Former foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi
JORDAN - King Abdullah
KENYA - Foreign Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere, Local Government Minister Musikari Kombo
KOSOVO - President Ibrahim Rugova
LATVIA - President Vaira Vike-Freiberga
LEBANON - President Emile Lahoud (Maronite Christian), Prime Minister Omar Karami (Sunni Muslim) and parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri (Shi'ite Muslim)
LITHUANIA - President Valdas Adamkus
LUXEMBOURG - Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker
MACEDONIA - President Branko Crvenkovski
MADAGASCAR - President Marc Ravolomanana, Foreign Affairs Minister Marcel Ranjeva
MALAYSIA - Bernard Dompok, minister in charge of the civil service, Abdullah Mohamad Zin, minister in charge of religious affairs
MAURITANIA - Foreign Minister Mohamed Vall Ould Bellal
MEXICO - President Vicente Fox
MONTENEGRO - President Filip Vujanovic
MOZAMBIQUE - President Armando Guebuza
NICARAGUA - President Enrique Bolanos, Foreign Minister Norman Caldera
NIGERIA - President Olusegun Obasanjo
NETHERLANDS - Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende
NEW ZEALAND - Governor-General Silvia Cartwright
NORWAY - Queen Sonja, Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik (King Harald is in hospital recovering from heart surgery)
PAKISTAN - Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz ul Haq
PALESTINIANS - Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie
PANAMA - President Martin Torrijos, Foreign Minister Samuel Lewis
PARAGUAY - Vice President Luis Castiglioni and Minister of Education and Culture Blanca Ovelar
PERU - Foreign Minister Manuel Rodriguez, President of Peru's Congress Antero Flores, Justice Minister Eduardo Salhuana
PHILIPPINES - President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
POLAND - President Aleksander Kwasniewski. Lech Walesa and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Poland's first post-communist president and prime minister
PORTUGAL - President Jorge Sampaio
ROMANIA - President Traian Basescu, Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu
RUSSIA - Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov
RWANDA - Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Murigande
SENEGAL - President Abdoulaye Wade
SERBIA - President Boris Tadic
SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO - President Svetozar Marovic
SEYCHELLES - President James Michel
SIERRA LEONE - Foday Seasay, ambassador to Germany
SINGAPORE - Deputy Prime Minister Professor S. Jayakumar
SLOVAKIA - President Ivan Gasparovic, Parliament Chairman Pavol Hrusovsky
SLOVENIA - President Janez Drnovsek, Prime Minister Janez Jansa, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel. Rupel will represent the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
SPAIN - King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
SOUTH AFRICA - Deputy President Jacob Zuma
SOUTH KOREA - Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan
SRI LANKA - Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse
SWEDEN - King Carl XVI Gustav and Queen Silvia
SYRIA - President Bashar al-Assad
TAIWAN - President Chen Shui-bian
TANZANIA - Markets and Cooperatives Minister George Kahama
TURKEY - Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan
UGANDA - Vice-President Gilbert Bukenya, the most senior Catholic in its government; Henry Okello Oryem, minister of state for international affairs.
UKRAINE - President Viktor Yushchenko
UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan
UNITED STATES - President Bush, former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
URUGUAY - Maria Auxiliadora Delgado, the wife of the president, and son Alvaro Vazquez
VENEZUELA - Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez
RELIGIOUS LEADERS:
Metropolitan Kirill, head of external relations for the Moscow Patriarchate. (Patriarch Alexiy II -- who repeatedly refused to meet the Pope -- will not attend)
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I
Spiritual head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams
Chief Rabbinate Director-General Oded Viner
Greek Orthodox leader, Archbishop Christodoulos
Head of Armenian Apostolic Church Catholicos Garegin II
Turkey's Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II
Metropolitan of Abkhazia Daniel Datuashvili
Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir
Romania's Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist
Bulgaria's Orthodox Rousse Bishop Neofit and Vidin Bishop Domitian
Norwegian Bishop Finn Wagle of the Protestant state church
Swedish Lutheran archbishop, K.G. Hammar
Albanian religious leaders: Selim Muca of the (Sunni) Muslim community, Rrok Mirdita, the Catholic Archbishop, Haxhi Dede Reshat Bardhi of the (Shi'ite) Bektashi Muslim sect and Orthodox Archbishop Anastasios of the Orthodox community.
Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Abune Paulos
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Orthodox ping!
Someone should ask Osama bin Laden to represent the Taliban, and then when he shows up, nab him!
Wow, what a list! I'm very nervous about this.
Patriarch Teoctist of Roumania will be there, and that makes me very happy. As Patriarch of the Orthodox Roumanians he had a good and warm relationship with Pope John Paul II.
Earlier in the day, the US Congressional delegation arrived---Dodd, Biden, Kerry (on crutches), Teddy.....and several others too liberal to mention.
Pataki was interviewed on CNN crowing about his Catholicity, announcing he and Libby are attending b/c it's "important" (gag).
That's some list of Who's Who!
What a security nightmare!!
Those Senators should be seated way in the back of the basilica...behind a pillar and blocked from camera view.
CNN's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour together with anchors Anderson Cooper and Bill Hemmer lead CNN's historic coverage from Vatican City. Also reporting from Rome will be Rome Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci, CNN International anchors Jonathan Mann and Richard Quest and correspondents Jim Bittermann and Jennifer Eccleston.
I don't want "coverage" of eight talking heads. If anyone knows where to get a chatter-free viewing/tape of the event...
Ah yes, "Miss Shock and Awe."
If CSpan covers it, that's a great way to watch - no noise.j
Also, EWTN, the Catholic world channel. I don't know if they'll talk over it - they did talk over the music the other day when moving the Pope's body from the chapel to the St. Peter's.
Thanks---I'll check online.
...they did talk over the music the other day when moving the Pope's body from the chapel to the St. Peter's.
So contemptuous of the viewer and of the event itself...
C-Span is covering the funeral and is doing a replay at 8 pm EST tomorrow night.
It will be nice to just hear the music and prayers and not commentary :)
They are a part of the Congressional delegation which is separate from the delegation the President is leading.
The headline mentions monarchs, but there are only a few listed in the dignitaries section. How about King Juan Carlos and other Catholic monarchs who aren't heads-of-state? The reporters really didn't do their homework.
OK, can I retract my previous post? ;-) In my defense, I'll say that I haven't gotten much sleep this week.
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