100,000 attend funeral

Press, 14 August 1978, Page 8

100,000 attend funeral

NZPA-Reuter Vatican City A simple chapel containing the tomb of Pope Paul VI was opened to the public yesterday in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica. The Pope, who died a week ago, aged 80, was buried on Saturday after a twohour funeral service attended by 100,000 mourners thronging St Peter’s Square and watched by tens of millions of television viewers around the world. The Requiem Mass was concelebrated by 107 scarletrobed cardinals as a symbol of their collective authority over the world’s 700 million Roman Catholics during the interregnum until they elect a new Pope. The two-hour service,

simple — in keeping with the style Pope Paul created during his 15-year reign — emphasised Christian hopes for resurrection after death. The mourners included six prime ministers, five vicepresidents, two princes and two consorts. Mrs Rosalynn Carter, Senator Edward Kennedy, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and the United Nations SecretaryGeneral (Dr Kurt Waldheim) were also among the blackdressed dignitaries on the steps of the Basilica. Squads of heavily-armed policemen and plainclothes detectives mingled with the mourners, ready to prevent any urban-guerrilla assault, but there was no trouble. The crowd, which included many tourists but few

Romans, applauded in tribute as Pope Paul’s plain cypress wood coffin was borne back to the Basilica after the service. The casket was taken down to the crypt, placed inside two larger caskets of lead and oak — each marked with the skull-and-crossbones symbol of death — and lowered into the ground in the chapel 20m from the tomb of Pope John XXIII. Coins and medals minted during Paul’s reign, a burial certificate, and a copy of a homily read during the service which described the late Pope as a “true prince of peace,” were put inside the coffins.

The chapel, which will eventually be decorated with

mosaics depicting the resurrection of the dead, was chosen by Pope Paul who decreed that he wanted no monuments. It wiil also contain a Madonna and Child statue attributed to the fifteenth century Florentine sculptor, Donatello. The assembled cardinals will now say eight more Masses for the deceased Pope during the official period of mourning which will end next Sunday. They will also spend time getting to know each other — many from the Third World had never met their European peers — before the 113 voting cardinals withdraw on August 25 into the secret conclave to choose Paul’s successor.