Pope's funeral 'a strong message about Christianity' - President

"This extraordinary event sends out a very strong message to the world about Christianity," President Eddie Fenech Adami told The Sunday Times shortly after the end of Pope John Paul's funeral outside St Peter's Basilica in Rome on Friday.

The President said that "this was an event unrepeated in history, attended by every world leader. My wife and I were deeply moved by the ceremony, and recalled our meetings with His Holiness, both at the Vatican and in his summer palace at Castelgandolfo.

"He was an extraordinary apostle for Christianity as a whole, preaching the universal good, sending out a message which was for real and concerned everybody. This has been a very sad occasion, but we must take strength from the late Pope's last words from his sickbed - words of hope for the future. We must carry forward this hope."

High-level participation at the funeral included 10 reigning sovereigns, three heirs to the throne, 57 heads of state, 17 heads of government, eight vice-presidents, six deputy prime ministers, and several dozen other ministers and ambassadors, all seated to the right of the altar on the steps outside the Basilica.

Innovative outreach

Reflecting John Paul II's innovative outreach to other Christians and faith communities, also present were nearly 200 leaders of non-Roman Catholic churches (which account for half the world's two billion Christians), as well as from the non-Christian faiths.

The Christians, such as the head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Orthodox Ecumenical Partriarch of Constantinople, sat in a block next to the Roman Catholic bishops, on the left of the altar - but were not offered Communion during the Mass, in line with the present Vatican ban on 'intercommunion'.

Jewish rabbis, Muslim mullahs, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and other religious leaders sat in another block next to the political leaders. But neither they nor the non-Roman Catholic Christian leaders had the opportunity to line up in front of the coffin for a formal bow of homage at the end of the ceremony.

A few minutes later, cardinals and the Pope's personal staff made their last farewell as his coffin was lowered into the earth under the Basilica, to be covered by a simple marble stone - according to the Pope's last will, which banned an elaborate marble sarcophagus.

The strongest message from the funeral was perhaps transmitted by the estimated four million pilgrims who poured into Rome, one million of them - waving national flags and banners - crammed into St Peter's Square and Via della Conciliazione for the funeral, as well as by millions of people around the world converging into public spaces or churches to watch the event together on giant TV screens - rather than separately at home.

Especially significant were the huge number of young people, guided by priests, nuns or teachers, who travelled to Rome from all continents, happily sleeping in tents, buses or the pavements around St Peter's.

Surrounded by a large group of Polish teenage schoolchildren, I joined the last batch of the estimated two million pilgrims to enter the basilica to view the Pope's body reposing on a draped catafalque near the main altar. Allowing only a brief glimpse, ushers moved the silent crowd along at top speed, but the side aisles were filled with people either sitting or kneeling on the cold marble floor, in no hurry to leave.

And though attendance at Sunday Mass in Italy has steadily declined (as in many other European Roman Catholic countries), hundreds of thousands of Romans and other Italians were among the pilgrims, while Rome was plastered with posters in the streets and shop windows stating "Roma piange e saluta il suo Papa", "Addio Nostro Papa", "Grazie Santità". Rome's mayor, Walter Veltroni, has already announced that the huge Termini railway station would be renamed Stazione Giovanni Paolo II.

Carrying forward the message from the funeral, as well as building on the late Pope's gigantic 26-year legacy - it seems he will be one of the four Popes to be called 'the Great' - is the challenge now facing the Church of Rome.

The first non-Italian for 455 years, the third longest-serving Pope, his extraordinary media presence, oratory, warmth and gift for human contact were flanked by his still partly secret role in the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe, his dozens of books, encyclicals, apostolic letters, 104 foreign trips to 129 countries totalling a million miles, and 1,473 audiences for foreign leaders, internal financial and organisational reforms.

But many issues facing the Church remain pending. These include pastoral care for the divorced, as well as the precipitous decline in new priestly vocations, accompanied by the departure of ordained priests, and whether to counter the growing shortage by revoking the 10th century celibacy rule in favour of allowing priests to marry, and married men to enter the priesthood.

The ordination of women, current in nearly all other Christian churches, is even more controversial. The Pope's 'hard line' on contraception and abortion have earned him harsh criticisms in many quarters due to the spread of AIDS in third world countries as well as the high rate of unwanted and rape-induced pregnancies among poor women there.

At the Conclave in the Sistine Chapel starting tomorrow week, 115 cardinals (two are too ill to attend) must come up with a two-thirds majority for one of the dozen or so papabili reported to be front runners to succeed John Paul II.

Choice of new Pope

Speculation in the media and the Church itself is rife as to the final choice - with some cardinals known to favour an elderly short-term (probably Italian) 'transition' Pope; others insisting that he must be from the third world (home to more than half the world's Roman Catholics); yet others advocating a young (viz. 60 or so) and/or 'liberal' who can carry through Church reforms, democratisation, the Vatican II recommendations, and reach out to the world's youth.

Clutching a Red Cross blanket before he dossed down for the pre-funeral night on the crowded Vatican pavement, a young Irish priest told The Sunday Times, "when the words Habemus Papam announce the new Pope, shortly after the fumata bianca emerges from the chapel's chimney, the world will know whether the Church is going to move forwards, backwards, sideways or just sink into immobility. I trust the Holy Spirit will guide the cardinals towards the best choice for our Church, all Christians and humanity."