‘The World’s Father’

The crowds gathered before first light Friday, swelling over bridges and through narrow streets, surging toward St. Peter’s Square, where nuns knelt and boys straddled the shoulders of fathers to glimpse Pope John Paul II’s coffin move through a morning of broken clouds.

Hundreds of thousands clapped and chanted, “Giovanni Paolo, Giovanni Paolo.” The roar rippled like a wave and then quieted. Bibles opened to the soft notes of an organ. The young and dreadlocked, the old and stooped stood side by side in a tide of humanity that was at once spectacle, faithful devotion and an evocative moment in history.

The crowds for the funeral Mass -- estimated at 4 million -- were giddy and tearful, joyous and reverent. They mourned a spiritual leader but celebrated his long and rich life. Teenagers fiddled with cameras and cellphones. Young priests sobbed. Silver-haired ladies said the rosary.

And Poles, tens of thousands of them, prayed with pride after traveling more than a thousand miles in cramped trains and cars for a last glance at their native son.

“He was our father,” said Wojciech Piegza, who had a Polish flag wrapped around his neck. “He was the world’s father.”

Pilgrims flowed out of St. Peter’s and down Via della Conciliazione toward Castel Sant’ Angelo. Thousands poured in from side streets to watch the Mass on towering television screens. Police manned metal barricades, helicopters thrummed overhead, and emergency workers, glowing in neon green and orange clothing, flickered past centuries-old statues of saints and angels.

“I’m not a Catholic. I’m from Nepal,” said Samman Khatewoda, a university student majoring in fine arts. “I came here out of respect for the Catholic religion. John Paul was a good man. I think millions of people must be here. The president of the United States is here. I think right now we are at the center of the world.”

Many pilgrims recounted the days when John Paul, the most widely traveled pontiff in history, landed in their country aboard his plane, Shepherd One.

“I was in Lourdes for his visit and in Paris for World Youth Day,” said Clemence Giral, who had traveled from France. “I’m happy to be here and confident that John Paul II is with God. He did a lot of good with his prayers.... Thanks to him, now we know the way to paradise. The spirit of John Paul II will illuminate the new pope.”

Daniela Puddu remembered when she stood in St. Peter’s more than 26 years ago as a child.

“I was in the square when John Paul was elected pope,” she said. “I was 11 years old and he stayed in my life like a relative. He was a great pope. He was close to people of all races. He was close to poor and rich, and he taught the young how to breathe their faith.”

Rita Mauro drove up from Calabria in southern Italy. “Coming here is something we did for the pope,” she said. “We’ve been here since Wednesday afternoon and have attended everything. It’s nice to be here. This has been a sweet and soft experience. I am surprised by the participation of the people. I always was touched by the pope, but the fact that he was loved by so many young people was a revelation to me.”

Winds stiffened and flags from Poland, Spain, France and Bosnia-Herzegovina snapped amid choral hymns. The ground was covered with sleeping bags, water bottles and clumps of backpacks. Pilgrims, many bleary-eyed and scraggly from spending a night in the cold, huddled under blankets. A few leaned on lampposts and slept. A man lifted a large cutout of a golden heart, which glimmered in the sunshine until the sky turned the color of slate.

Two hundred dignitaries, including President Bush and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, were specks in a sea of bishops and cardinals to most mourners, who pushed and strained and finally resigned themselves that they could get no closer to the pope’s wooden coffin at the steps of the basilica.

“The pope showed us faith in getting our Poland back from the communists,” said Marcin Janecki, who borrowed money from a stranger to travel 24 hours on a train from Katowice in southern Poland. “I was a young boy at the beginning of his papacy. My parents taught me about him. He was a great man. He took on poverty and war and peace and morality.

“He made us focus on problems we don’t want to because we think too much of making money or getting ahead. He showed us transcendence.”

The media universe, the realm the pope so often courted, moved through the crowds and camped at their edge. Images flashed across screens, loudspeakers roared. Thousands of pilgrims held digital cameras, recording the flesh and blood before their eyes. It was this magnetic power that John Paul understood, and it seemed fitting that his funeral would be as electronic for many as it was redemptive for others.

The Mass ended. The cardinals disappeared into the basilica. The heads of state gathered their entourages. The pallbearers lifted John Paul’s coffin.

Another wave rolled through the crowd: “Giovanni Paolo, Giovanni Paolo.” It was over, but no one was quite sure what to do. There was stillness, a few more tears and then the shuffle of feet over blackened cobblestones toward train stations and highways leading home in the rain.

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Special correspondent Damian Salsarola contributed to this report.