Pope John Paul II Dies At 84
After a swift decline in his health over the past several days, Pope John Paul II died in his apartment at the Vatican Saturday. He was 84 years old.
"We all feel like orphans this evening," Undersecretary of State Archbishop Leonardo Sandri told the crowd of 70,000 that had gathered in St. Peter's Square below the pope's still-lighted apartment windows.
The assembled faithful fell into a stunned silence before some people broke out in applause — an Italian tradition in which mourners often clap for important figures. Others wept.
The pope's very public death, with unprecedented details and public appearances when he was bent and even drooling, was meant to be part of the message he preached throughout his papacy: All life has value, reports CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey.
The Vatican says the pope's body is expected to be brought to St. Peter's Basilica no earlier than Monday afternoon.
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The Vatican chamberlain formally verified the pope's death, which in the past has been done by tapping the pontiff's forehead three times with a silver hammer. The Vatican summoned the College of Cardinals, and the Vatican chamberlain destroyed the symbols of the pope's authority: his fisherman's ring and dies used to make lead seals for apostolic letters.
In contrast to the church's ancient traditions, Navarro-Valls announced the death to journalists in the most modern of communication forms, an e-mail that said: "The Holy Father died this evening at 9:37 p.m. in his private apartment." The spokesman said church officials were following instructions that John Paul had written for them on Feb. 22, 1996.
John Paul's funeral will be held within four to six days. The Vatican has declined to say whether he left instructions for his funeral or burial. Most popes in recent centuries have asked to be buried in the crypts below St. Peter's Basilica, but some have suggested the first Polish-born pope might have chosen to be laid to rest in his native country.
As John Paul's death neared, members of the College of Cardinals, the red-robed "princes" of the Roman Catholic Church, were already headed toward the Vatican to prepare for the secret duty of locking themselves in the Sistine Chapel to elect the next pope. The Vatican says they will have a preliminary meeting Monday. Until then,power will be divided among a core group of Vatican officials.
Among possible successors are German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — one of the pope's closest aides and the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog. Others mentioned include Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Vatican-based Nigerian, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria and Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Italy.
The next pope will confront a range of challenges, including scientific advances that conflict with Catholic teaching; the decline of religious observance in Europe and North America; an explosion in church membership in the Third World; and a dwindling number of priests in the West.
After a quarter-century of John Paul's strong personality and hands-on management style, some want Vatican officials to stay out of the day-to-day operations of dioceses. Others believe officials in Rome should stay deeply involved to crack down on dissent.
Vatican observers disagree over whether there will be pressure in the conclave to return the papacy to an Italian, or whether they will want to send a signal to the burgeoning ranks of Catholics in the Third World by choosing an African or Latin American candidate.
Outside the Vatican, the crowd of faithful recited the rosary. A seminarian slowly waved a large red and white Polish flag draped with a black band of mourning for the Polish-born pontiff.
Prelates asked those in the square to keep silent so they might "accompany the pope in his first steps into heaven."
As bells tolled in mourning, a group of young people sang, "Alleluia, he will rise again," while one of them strummed a guitar. Later, pilgrims joined in singing the "Ave Maria."
A Mass was scheduled for St. Peter's Square for 10:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. EDT) Sunday.
Hospitalized twice last month after breathing crises, and fitted with a breathing tube and a feeding tube, John Paul had become a picture of suffering.
His papacy has been marked by its call to value the aged and to respect the sick, subjects the pope has turned to as he battles Parkinson's disease and crippling knee and hip ailments. The pope also survived a 1981 assassination attempt, when a Turkish gunman shot him in the abdomen.
Born in Poland in 1920 as Karol Wojtyla, John Paul secretly trained for the priesthood under Nazi occupation, lived under Communism, and contributed to the fall of the Iron Curtain by denouncing the oppression of Christians and supporting the Solidarity movement in his homeland.
John Paul unequivocally opposed pre- and extra-marital sex, homosexuality, abortion, and the use of contraception.
The 264th pope battled what he called a "culture of death" in modern society. It made him a hero to those who saw him as their rock in a degenerating world, and a foe to those who felt he was holding back social enlightenment.
"The church cannot be an association of freethinkers," John Paul said.
However, a sex abuse scandal among clergy plunged his church into moral crisis. He summoned U.S. cardinals to the Vatican and told them: "The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society; it is also an appalling sin in the eyes of God." Critics accused the pope of not acting swiftly enough.
Other critics said that while the pope championed the world's poor, he was not consistent when he rebuked Latin American priests who sought to involve the church politically through the doctrine of "liberation theology."