news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4310789.stm
Pope John Paul II in 2004 The Pope has specified his own funeral arrangements The death of Pope John Paul II at the age of 84 has immediately set in mo tion a chain of events leading up to burial and election of a successor. The BBC News website looks at key points of this chain, some of them ritu als dating back many centuries. The Vatican camerlengo, or chamberlain, Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, formally verified the death. According to tradition, when the pope's bo dy is discovered, his baptismal name is called out three times. In a small ceremony, the Pope's Fisherman's Ring and papal seal were brok en. It is a symbolic act today, but one originally designed to prevent i mpersonation and forgery. There is a strict Vatican protocol for dealing with the death of a pope. Word is passed through the Church's civil service - the Curia - and fore ign ambassadors and heads of state are informed officially. But it is Va tican Radio that flashes news of his death around the world. Each pope is able to specify their own funeral arrangements. This time, t he Vatican will be working to a blueprint drawn up by Pope John Paul II in 1996. According to, Dr John Pollard, a Cambridge University historian, the Pope 's body is likely to be embalmed and then exposed for the veneration of the faithful - usually in a major chapel of St Peter's Basilica. Dr Pollard says various requiem services are held over a maximum period o f nine days. Pope John Paul II must be buried within four to six days of his death - in this case, between Wednesday and Friday. The funeral will take place in St Peter's Square and heads of state and g overnment and religious leaders from around the world will be invited. Church services will also be held all over Poland, which has declared nat ional mourning until the Pope's funeral. The Pope is expected to be buried alongside his immediate predecessors in the crypt under the main altar of Saint Peter's Basilica. There have be en rumours that he wanted to be buried in Poland, but experts say this i s unlikely. Other reports say officials in Poland want the Pope's heart to be extract ed and buried in Krakow, where the Pope was once a cardinal. Dr Pollard says this is unlikely, although it was the custom until the late 19th Ce ntury to bury the pope's heart separately. Cardinals from around the world elect the successor in a centuries-old ri tual called the conclave. This is supposed to begin 15 to 20 days after a pope's death. Before the conclave, coalition-builders will have been forging alliances. Senior cardinals who may themselves have little chance of becoming pope can still exert a considerable influence over the others. It is therefo re a crucial stage in the election process and a time when every public remark by the cardinals is picked over by Vatican-watchers. On the day the conclave begins, the cardinals will move in procession int o the Sistine Chapel. They will have the option of holding an initial ba llot - but only that first ballot - on their first afternoon in conclave . This would give them an opportunity to gauge the level of support for various candidates, before retiring for the night to contemplate their c hoice. Or they could follow the normal practice of waiting until the fol lowing morning to begin the election and the voting. From this point, there will be four ballots a day until a new pope is cho sen. The ballot papers are burned after every second vote, so black smok e is likely to be seen twice a day - at around midday and in the late af ternoon or early evening. The new pope will then appear on the balcony of St Peter's Basilica. The election is genuinely wide open but it is possible to identify some k ey players. For 455 years before the election of Pope John Paul all Popes had been It alian. One of the big questions this time round is whether Italy will ge t the papacy back. Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan is a strong cand idate. But many Vatican watchers are far from convinced they will, for the simpl e reason that the proportion of Italians in the electoral body has decli ned in recent years. Much more likely, they believe, is that the next pope will be from the de veloping world - and most likely from Latin America, whose cardinals now form a powerful voting bloc. One name that is being talked about is Car dinal Claudio Hummes, Archbishop of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Nearly half of the world's baptised Catholics live in the Americas, and m ore live in Brazil than in any other country in the world. There is a chance that an African pope could emerge from the conclave. Ca rdinal Francis Arinze is a Nigerian who has long been regarded as a seri ous contender.
|
http://csua.com/feed/