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Thursday, April 7, 2005

The decision came after the cardinals read John Paul's spiritual testament during a pre-conclave meeting Wednesday, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said, adding that the text would be released on Thursday.

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Navarro-Valls said the cardinals would celebrate a morning Mass on April 18, then be sequestered in the Sistine Chapel in the early afternoon to start the conclave.

According to church law, prelates are expected to hold at least one ballot on the first day of a conclave. If no one gets the required two-thirds majority after about 12 days, cardinals may change procedure and elect the pope by simple majority.

The date was set on the third day of preparatory meetings of cardinals who have converged on Rome ahead of Friday's funeral and burial of John Paul, which are expected to draw millions of pilgrims and world leaders.

Pilgrims continued to flock to St. Peter's Square on Wednesday, jamming up streets as they waited to pay their final respects to John Paul, who has been lying in state in St. Peter's Basilica since Monday afternoon.

Bush immediately went to St. Peter's Basilica to view the pontiff's body upon arriving in Rome on Wednesday.

Bush, his wife, Laura, former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and chief of staff Andrew Card knelt before the pope's bier in St. Peter's Basilica for about five minutes, their hands clasped in prayer, after being ushered in by a side door.

The general public filed past the crimson-robed body on the other side of the bier during Bush's visit.

More than 1 million pilgrims will have filed solemnly by the crimson-robed body by the end of Wednesday, according to calculations by the Italian civil defense department.

Overwhelmed Italian officials warned people face a 24-hour wait to see the body and said they will cut off the line, which snaked down a wide boulevard, through ancient alleyways and onto a bridge, on Wednesday evening.

The civil defense department was flashing messages on highway panels and sending out text messages on cell phones to warn people of the closure, which will allow officials to clear the basilica on time and prepare it for Friday's funeral, spokesman Luca Spoletini said.

John Paul's spiritual testament, read Wednesday, was a 15-page document written in his native Polish over the course of his pontificate starting in 1979, a year after he was elected.

It did not name the mystery cardinal he created in 2003, Navarro-Valls said, ending speculation that a last-minute cardinal might join in the April 18 start of the conclave.

John Paul, who died on Saturday at 84 after a 26-year term as the leader of the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics, created the "in pectore" or "in the heart" cardinal in his last consistory. The formula is used when the pope wants to name a cardinal from a country where the church is oppressed. Some observers said the cardinal might be a prelate from China, where the authorities only recognize a state-sanctioned church.

Copies of John Paul's testament will be released in Polish and an Italian translation, Navarro-Valls said.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George told CNN the document was a "very, very moving, spiritual testament of a man who lived with the Lord."

The number of cardinal electors under 80 and thus eligible to vote is 117, but only 116 will enter the conclave after the Philippines Embassy to the Holy See confirmed that Cardinal Jaime Sin, 76, was too ill to attend. Sin had been one of only three cardinal electors who also took part in the 1978 conclave to elect John Paul.

When the cardinals decide on a candidate, the traditional white smoke that for centuries has announced the selection of a new pope to the world will be joined by the tolling of bells. The move is designed to avoid confusion over the color of smoke coming from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel: black smoke means no two-thirds majority has been reached during a round of balloting, white smoke means a majority has determined the next pope.

In another change from past papal elections, cardinals voting in the conclave will have access to all of Vatican City during the election, as opposed to being sequestered in the Sistine Chapel and allowed to sleep only in the adjoining Apostolic Palace.

Navarro-Valls ruled out that the late pope's body might be brought to St. John Lateran basilica, across Rome, before it is buried on Friday, as was done for Pope Pius XII when he died in 1958.

The spokesman also said that with such crowds already converging on Rome, the Vatican could not meet requests for a viewing at what is Rome's cathedral. Instead, John Paul will be buried immediately after the funeral in the grotto under St. Peter's Basilica, he said.

Giant television screens, however, will be set up at St. John Lateran, so that crowds who gather there will be able to view the funeral proceedings, he said.

The crush of pilgrims on the road leading to the Vatican will rise sharply when an expected 2 million Poles arrive in Rome for Friday's funeral.

Italian Cardinal Pio Laghi told reporters the scene was like a cloud, "but it is a cloud that is luminous and full of life."

Italy was calling in extra police to the capital and planned to seal off much of the Eternal City on Friday to protect a VIP contingent that will include President Bush, French President Jacques Chirac, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the presidents of Syria and Iran, among other heads of state.

John Paul made his wish known "to be buried in the ground," said Archbishop Piero Marini, a longtime close aide as papal master of ceremonies.

Marini said John Paul would be buried with a white silk veil on his face, his body clad in liturgical vestments and the white miter. Keeping with tradition, his remains will be placed inside three coffins - wood, zinc and wood - a design meant to slow down the decomposition process.

A small bag of commemorative medals issued over the course of his pontificate, as well as a sealed document featuring a brief description in Latin of John Paul's life, will be buried with him, Marini said.

He said Polish wishes that soil from the pope's native country would be placed in the coffin will go unfulfilled.

In other developments, Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, John Paul's personal physician, was quoted as telling La Repubblica newspaper that John Paul "passed away slowly, with pain and suffering which he endured with great human dignity" and "could not utter a single word before passing away."

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