ROME - As he lay dying, Pope John Paul II was aware of the presence of the crowd in St. Peter's Square below his apartment window and calmly viewed death as a "passage from one room to another," his longtime secretary said in an interview broadcast Friday night.
"He heard everything. He heard the square, he heard the prayer, the presence of the young people. The Holy Father heard, because he was conscious right to the end, almost to the end, even the last day," Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz told private Italian Canale 5's TG5 news in an interview in Krakow, Poland, where he will be installed as archbishop on Saturday.
Dziwisz served as Karol Wojtyla's secretary in Krakow, where the future pope served as cardinal, and continued to serve him in the Vatican until John Paul's death April 2 at age 84.
The archbishop was referring to the crowd of faithful that had gathered in the square below John Paul's apartment window to pray and keep vigil for the pontiff in the last days of his life.
Pope’s last words: ‘Totus tuus’
The former papal secretary said the last words he heard the pope utter were "Totus tuus," the pontiff's Latin motto for "Completely yours," dedicating himself to Mary.