Archbishop of Sydney

Israel

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
10 April 2005

We were having a late Saturday evening meal in Galilee in the north of Israel when word came through that Pope John Paul II had died.  There was a round of applause and then we prayed together in gratitude for his leadership, that his soul would be at peace and for the Church.

I was at a gathering of bishops, of the heads of 57 seminaries (where priests are trained) from around the world and of the husband and wife teams who lead the communities of the Neo-Catechumenal Way in each country.

Among this group of deeply committed Catholics there were mixed emotions.  We were saddened by the inevitable loss, relieved that the Pope’s suffering had ended and very aware that we believed in life after death.  The sadness at a Christian funeral where the congregation believes that death is not the end is different from one where there is no such hope.

All the cardinals are called to Rome on the death of a pope and I flew from Tel Aviv the next day.

On Monday evening the body was carried in procession from the sixteenth century Sala Clementina in the Vatican Palace down Bernini’s long and grand Scala Regia through the Bronze Doors, out into St. Peter’s Square before being carried into the basilica to lie in state above St. Peter’s tomb.

Nearly all the cardinals, many of them old men, were in the procession with members of the Papal household and the basilica’s clergy.

Some thousands were in the Square and they greeted the body with successive rounds of applause.  Already every type of person was present.

Rome has never seen a time like this and probably no other city has, anywhere in any century. 

As I looked down the beautiful stairway at the procession flanked by the Swiss Guards their medieval uniforms, which mythology (inaccurately) attributes to Michelangelo, I felt something of the weight of the 2000 years of Catholic history, with its saints and sinners, its triumphs and scandals.

No king, no saint, no great soldier has been paid tribute in the way that is happening now on Wednesday night before the funeral as I write.  Not Churchill, not Nelson or Napoleon, not Pope John XXIII.

The queue to pass by the body is kilometres long with a wait of five hours before entry.  Different regions of Italy have been allocated different days to pay their respects.

The Poles fall into another category again.  The Pope was not only one of them, Poland’s best known citizen, but, as their President explained, they are a free people now because of him.  The papers are claiming that between one to two million Poles will come.

President Bush and three former U.S.A. presidents will be present.  Both Jewish and Islamic leaders will be here and young people in their hundreds of thousands are everywhere.

It promises to be quite a funeral.