Intimate Farewell for One of the Family

VATICAN CITY — It was the first of many farewells that Romans will hold for Pope John Paul II this week, and perhaps the most intimate and familial.

Tens of thousands of faithful filled St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for a solemn, open-air Mass for the repose of the soul of the pontiff, who died Saturday night after a long, debilitating illness.

But somehow, for all its elegiac qualities, the event had an air of life interrupted rather than death commemorated. The crowd was overwhelmingly local, and on an early-spring day warmed by faint sunshine, many chose to simply come as they were.

There were bicyclists in their shorts, scooter riders clutching their helmets, miniskirted mothers pushing babies in strollers, frolicking dogs barely restrained on leashes. On the fringes of the crowd, some smoked cigarettes or slurped cones of gelato.

“It may seem very informal, even a little shocking, but this shows the way we feel about our pope: that he was one of our family,” said Michela Gambilara, who lives in an old Roman neighborhood a few blocks from the Vatican. “Today we are remembering him as part of our lives.”

The Polish-born John Paul was the first non-Italian pope in more than 4 1/2 centuries. But over the course of a papacy that spanned 26 years, Italians embraced him as one of their own.

“He didn’t only become an Italian,” Gambilara said as her friends nodded vigorously in agreement. “He was” -- she searched for a fitting tribute -- “he was a real Roman!”

Many in the crowd held up placards bearing the pope’s image or waved copies of the newspaper Il Messaggero. “Il Papa di Tutti,” the headline read, using the double meaning of “the pope of all” and “the father of all.”

Sunday’s Mass, presided over by the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, provided a foretaste of the centuries-old rituals that will consume the coming days: a stately funeral, to be held this week, and later on the secrecy-shrouded selection of a new pontiff.

As the Mass began, white-robed cardinals filed onto the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, each pausing to kiss the altar before taking his place. Liturgical chants rose into the air, echoing off the square’s ancient stones as flocks of pigeons wheeled overhead.

“As today we weep for the death of the pope who has left us, we open our hearts to the vision of eternal destiny,” the cardinal told his listeners. His homily to “our beloved John Paul” was interrupted repeatedly by applause -- first a patter, then rising to a thunder.

Afterward, crowds lingered in the square, gathering around television screens that gave a first glimpse of the pope’s body, displayed inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

Only dignitaries and diplomats were allowed inside, but hundreds of thousands of people are expected to file past the body when it lies in state this week in the basilica.

Sister Beatrice, a 70-year-old Dominican nun from France, shaped her lips around an “Alleluia” with tears welling in her eyes as she gazed at the screen. “This is a traumatic loss for us all,” she murmured.

As had happened the night before when word of the pope’s death spread, the crowd grew rapidly, spilling out of the sprawling, colonnaded plaza and down the boulevards radiating from it. Many in the crowd could be seen raising their hands above their heads; they were using cellular phones to snap photos of the throng.

“I’m not a Catholic, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Rome and not come here today,” said Dutch tourist Hettie de Longe. “It’s a day for everyone. It’s a day for history.”