Posted on 04/08/2005 6:03:35 AM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY - Presidents, prime ministers and kings joined pilgrims and prelates in St. Peter's Square on Friday to bid farewell to Pope John Paul II at a funeral service that drew millions to Rome for one of the largest religious gatherings of modern times.
Applause rang out as John Paul's simple wooden coffin adorned with a cross and an "M" for Mary was brought out from St. Peter's Basilica and placed on a carpet in front of the altar. The book of the Gospel was placed on the coffin and the wind lifted the pages.
The Vatican's Sistine Choir sang the Gregorian chant, "Grant Him Eternal Rest, O Lord," and the service got under way. Cardinals wearing white miters walked onto the square, their red vestments blowing in the breeze.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of the College of Cardinals, a close confidant of John Paul and a possible successor, presided at the Mass and referred to him as our "late beloved pope" in a homily that traced the pontiff's life from his days as a factory worker in Nazi-occupied Poland to his final days as the head of the world's 1 billion Catholics.
Interrupted by applause at least 10 times, the usually unflappable German-born Ratzinger choked up as he recalled one of John Paul's last public appearances — when he blessed the faithful from his studio window on Easter.
"We can be sure that our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the father's house, that he sees us and blesses us," he said to applause, even among the prelates, as he pointed up to the third-floor window above the square.
"Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality — our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time of joyful hope and profound gratitude," Ratzinger said in heavily accented Italian.
He said John Paul was a "priest to the last" and said he had offered his life for God and his flock "especially amid the sufferings of his final months."
Ratzinger was interrupted again toward the end of the Mass by several minutes of cheers, rhythmic applause and shouts of "Giovanni Paolo Santo" or "Saint John Paul," from the crowd.
At the beginning of the Mass, Ratzinger prayed for God to "grant your servant and our pope, John Paul II, who in the love of Christ led your church, to share with the flock entrusted to him the reward promised to the faithful ministers of the Gospel."
After the 2 1/2-hour Mass, the body will be carried deep under the basilica, where it will join the remains of popes from throughout the ages near the traditional tomb of the apostle Peter, the first pope.
John Paul requested in his last will and testament to be buried "in the bare earth," and his body will be laid to rest under the floor of the grotto below the basilica. His tomb will be covered with a flat stone bearing his name and the dates of his birth and death. Pilgrims will eventually be able to visit.
At least 300,000 people filled St. Peter's Square and spilled out onto the wide Via della Conciliazione leading toward the Tiber River, but millions of others watched on giant video screens set up across Rome. Banners read "Santo Subito," or "Sainthood Immediately."
Earlier, groggy pilgrims who had camped out on the cobblestones awoke in their sleeping bags to hordes of the faithful stepping over them as they tried to secure a good spot to view the Mass.
The square and the boulevard leading to it were a sea of red and white flags waved by pilgrims from John Paul's beloved Poland, many in traditional dress shouting "Polska! Polska!" Pilgrims from other countries raised their national flags in the crowd — American, Lebanese, Spanish, Croatian — and prayers were read out during the Mass in a host of languages — French, Swahili, Portuguese, among others.
"We just wanted to say goodbye to our father for the last time," said Joanna Zmijewsla, 24, who traveled for 30 hours with her brother from a town near Kielce, Poland, arriving at St. Peter's at 1 a.m. Friday.
American Archbishop James Harvey, head of papal protocol, greeted dignitaries and religious leaders as they emerged onto the steps of the basilica. Many shook Harvey's hand and offered condolences before mingling and taking their appointed seats.
Turbans, fezzes, yarmulkes, black lace veils, or mantillas, joined the "zucchettos," or skull caps, of Catholic prelates on the steps of St. Peter's in an extraordinary mix of religious and government leaders from around the world.
"I'm here because I'm a believer but also to live a moment in history," said Stephan Aubert, wearing a French flag draped over his shoulders.
Bells tolled as the final leaders took their places on red-cushioned wooden seats. Ten minutes before the scheduled start of the funeral, the U.S. delegation arrived, headed by President Bush, and including his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Bill Clinton.
President Bush sat on the aisle in the second row, next to his wife, Laura. Beside them were French President Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette. The two presidents shook hands.
Vatican ushers dressed in white tie and tails seated dignitaries who were given a chance to view John Paul's body before it was carried out of the basilica — where it has lain in state since Monday — and into the square.
Rome itself was at a standstill. Just after midnight Thursday, a ban took effect on vehicle traffic in the city center. Airspace was closed, and anti-aircraft batteries outside the city were on alert. Naval ships patrolled both the Mediterranean coast and the Tiber River near Vatican City, the tiny sovereign city-state encompassed by the Italian capital.
Italian authorities took extraordinary precautions to protect the royalty and heads of state or government attending the funeral.
Elite Carabinieri paramilitary police armed with automatic rifles were stationed at virtually every major intersection in Rome to minimize the threat of a terrorist attack on the more than 80 heads of state and monarchs attending the Mass.
Combat jets from Italy's air force, joined by an AWACS surveillance plane deployed by NATO, guarded against any strike from above on the leaders and top Roman Catholic prelates assembled on St. Peter's Square. Italian security agencies posted snipers on rooftops, and a navy warship armed with torpedoes cruised the coastline near Rome. Anti-aircraft rocket launchers were placed strategically around the capital.
Jewish and Muslim leaders were among the dignitaries from more than 80 countries, including the presidents of Syria and Iran, and the king of Jordan.
The pope's death on Saturday at age 84 has elicited a remarkable outpouring of affection around the world and brought an estimated 4 million people to Rome, doubling its population. Most of the pilgrims, however, can only hope to see the ceremony on giant TV screens that have been erected around the Vatican and in piazzas around Rome.
In Krakow, Poland, where John Paul studied for the priesthood, about 800,000 people watched the funeral on three TV screens set up in a field. Many had spent the night around bonfires after a Thursday night Mass drew a million people.
Sirens wailed in Warsaw for three minutes to announce the start of the funeral to the Polish capital. Some 25,000 people packed Pilsudski Square where the pope celebrated Mass during his first visit to his homeland as pope, and another 2,000 gathered in the Old Town in front of St. Ann's Church to watch the funeral on huge screens.
The faithful gathered in the Philippines, Vietnam and elsewhere to watch the service on television or to pray for John Paul. An overflow crowd of about 7,000 worshippers filled Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
John Paul's funeral began with an intimate ceremony attended only by high-ranking prelates, who placed a pouch of silver and bronze medals and a scrolled account of his life in his coffin.
His longtime private secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, and the master of the liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Piero Marini, placed a white silk veil over the pope's face before the coffin was closed.
Dziwisz was seen weeping at several occasions during the Mass.
The Vatican released John Paul's last will and testament on the eve of the funeral. Penned in Polish over 22 years, beginning five months after his election in October 1978, he gave instructions for his burial and also told his private secretary to burn his personal notes upon his death.
He also suggested he considered resigning in 2000, when his infirmities were already apparent. Revising his will just three days before a historic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, John Paul prayed that God would "help me to recognize up to what point I must continue this service."
On Thursday, the huge bronze doors of St. Peter's were closed to the public in preparation for the Mass. In four days, some estimates say nearly 2 million pilgrims passed by his bier to pay their last respects.
Rome groaned under the weight of visitors. Side streets were clogged in a permanent pedestrian rush hour, mostly by kids with backpacks. Tent camps sprang up at the Circus Maximus and elsewhere around the city to take the spillover from hotels. Hawkers jacked up prices of everything from bottled water to papal trinkets.
While visiting my children's school, I picked up a pamphlet from the Greek Orthodox liturgy library. It contained morning/evening prayers.
The "Hagios.....imas" was repeated a number of times throughout both prayers, which I thought was very interesting.
I'm going to have to cruise around in that library more often. Just from that pamphlet, it was clear to me that the forms are VERY formal, very static, very 'iconic.' Refreshing.
Although there's a great deal of comment on the 'conservatism' and 'ceremonial' of the Pope's Requiem Mass, it was really stripped of a good deal of the content of the Old Rite Requiem--similarly, Holy Saturday (Novus) services are almost devoid of content compared to the Old Rite (e.g., they have dumped the Litany of the Saints and about 40% of the Exultet chant.)
They hate Higher Things.
Yours is another excellent observation which bolsters those (I am among them) who claim that "sacred time, sacred space, sacred language" were stripped out for some 'pragmatic' advantage.
The Modernists understood VERY well that Art in Liturgy reminds us of our real destination; that St. Pius X was correct in his trenchant observation that Art should remind us of all that is Good, Holy, and True, and that the more Art resembles this 'trilogy,' the better it is.
Take out Art, and you take out all those elements.
So the Modernists understood well the concept of 'what we pray is what we believe' and have done their best to make prayer "flat" or 'horizontal.'
Ratzinger has commented extensively on this phenomenon.
Again, St. Pius X said that Art in worship should 'lift the minds AND hearts' of the Faithful to God. That conjunction is absolutely critical; and I fear that the Modernists have managed to stop lifting BOTH.
Interesting theory.
Current high-school Latin teaching supports that, more or less.
My children are instructed in the "classical" Latin pronunciation, where the letter 'v' is pronouced as a 'w.' OTOH, "Church" Latin pronounces it 'v,' as in the English. Similarly, whereas 'church' Latin pronounces the letter 'c' as 'ch' (church, e.g.) when that 'c' is followed by two vowels, the 'classical' pronounces ALL 'c's as 'k.'
There were actually three so-called "redactions" of the Church Slavonic -- Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian. The Serbian morphed into Russian at the end of the 18th century because the Serbs (under Ottoman Empire) could not print their own books so they started importing Russian/Ukrainian texts and theology teachers. Russian version of the Church Slavonic is the official language of the Serbian Orthodox and Russian Orthodox Churches.
I have to emphasize that any Church Slavonic is the same language (just as English-English and American-English are) -- different pronunciations (i.e. vaisitinu vs voistinu, etc.) and that either version served as a source of literature and education for the Slavic Orthodox world for centuries under Turkish slavery.
The vernacular of the 12th century Bosnian Serb rulers show a close similarity to the Church Slavonic but lacking in grace and elegance of the latter.
Thanks to the Orthodox Church, Orthodox Christians in Slavic lands can read and understand with very little effort documents written a thousand years ago. Thus, there is a strong sense of history in our Churches when we pray in the same language as our forefathers did and stand in the same churches where they stood. Koloktronis certainly has an even greater sense of continuity going back some 1600 years and the preserved koine Greek.
Orthodoxy, thus externally and symbolically preserves the transcendence and immutability of the faith and God.
That is correct -- veni, vidi, vici is pronounced as weni, widi, wiki. Cicero held a famous speech in the Senate of Rome asking the senate to declare war in carthage. Lifting a huge fig this size of a human fist that came from Carthage as a 'motivator' he said the famous sentence: Ceterum censo, Carthaginem esse delendam (pronounced as keterum, keseo, kartaginem esse delendam) "Therefore I think Carthage should be destroyed."
I just watched the opening of Prince Charles' blessing and the opining song was the Symbol of Faith (Creed) sung in Church Slavonic. Unbelieveable! In an Anglican Church! I know that Charles has been visitng the Holy Mountain (Mt Athos) and that his father prince Phillip is Greek (Orthodox), but this came as a complete surprize! Glory to God in the Highest.
Here is Florida, I woke one of the most glorious mornings I've ever seen. God has painted the sky a most perfect blue and the air is clean and moving with a gentle breeze.
Then I read your #33 and it literally made my day. I owe you one.
Thanks for the warm comments triple A. I return them in spades.
God Bless
You are splitting hairs on two dimensions; time and dialect.
Let it go. We are violently agreeing. My point about it being ironic is a matter of opinion.
"I just watched the opening of Prince Charles' blessing and the opining song was the Symbol of Faith (Creed) sung in Church Slavonic. Unbelieveable! In an Anglican Church! I know that Charles has been visitng the Holy Mountain (Mt Athos) and that his father prince Phillip is Greek (Orthodox), but this came as a complete surprize! Glory to God in the Highest"
Seems this is a time of religious wonders and marvels.
I'd be interested in learning more about the service. I find it interesting that he specifically decided not to have a Church of England wedding. One wonders if a secret Orthodox wedding is in the works...
"One wonders if a secret Orthodox wedding is in the works..."
Only if he's secretly Orthodox....
That's yet another rumor which we won't go into.
What an awesome graphic! Thank you for the post and ping!
I couldn't believe when I heard the words "Vyeruyu vo yedinago Otsa Boga..." (I believe in One God, the Father...), in Church Slavonic in the an Anglican church. It was sung with a heavy Russian accent by a very elegant looking woman. A Church Slavonic Nicene Creed (of course without the filioque) sung in front of the Queen of England at her son's wedidng's blessing?! I couldn't believe my ears. There was no comment on CNN (they were clueless) afterwards by anyone on this.
For our Catholic friends, the stark contrast of the traditional Church of England's "Tridentine" flavor should have brought back some memories. The altar was facing and right against the east wall, and the choir and organs and the entire "mood" was the way Catholic Church used to be. There is a certain dignity that must be experienced and cannot be explained, just as it is in an Orthodox church.
Of course, very few of the people in the crowd at St. Peters know what it used to be. They only know Novus Ordo and think that's the way it always was. But in all fairness, it is almost unrecognizable.
Wink, wink!!!!
Nudge, nudge...
Why not ask for the REAL Latin Mass everyday? What's this once a month nonsense? The Church Militant is largley comprised of wimps.
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