POPE John Paul II Has Died!
Paris - As Pope John Paul II neared the end of his long and public battle with failing health, his anguished flock around the world Saturday prayed that death would come peacefully.
"He is teaching us the most important lesson: the lesson of dying," said a priest in the southern Polish town where the pope was born 84 years ago.
The outpouring of concern - from Protestants, Muslims and Jews - spread as far as Pakistan, Iraq and even China, where Roman Catholics make up but a small percentage of its 1,3 billion people.
At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, worshippers and tourists lit candles beneath a 1997 photo showing a vigorous pope before Parkinson's disease and other ailments started taking their toll in public appearances marked by pain.
"It's a time of sadness and a real time of reflection on what the pope has done in his 26 years as pope," said Mike Miller, an American visitor. "A really great man, and it's a very sombre time."
Catholic churches held special Masses and worshippers lit candles before photographs of the pontiff - the first non-Italian pope in centuries, whom many credited with transforming the church.
In St Mary's basilica in the southern Polish town of Wadowice, the pope's birthplace, the Reverend Krzysztof Glowka told a packed church: "We are here to be with John Paul in his agony, to experience, together with him, this great mystery of life that is death."
He is at rest.
Click for the full story
Re: POPE John Paul II Has Died!
