Pope's Funeral Begins

Pallbearers carried the body of Pope John Paul II onto the stone steps in front of St Peter's basilica this morning, laying the simple cypress coffin down as a choir sang to mark the start of his funeral mass.

A copy of the New Testament was laid on top of the coffin, its pages left to ruffle in the wind. Cardinals dressed in brilliant red, the colour of mourning in the Vatican, came forward to kiss the altar set up in front of a crowd of world leaders and pilgrims from around the world.

Kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers and ayatollahs had earlier taken their places in St Peter's square, as hundreds of thousands of mourners packed the streets of the Vatican to hear the funeral service.

The prime minister, Tony Blair, arrived in the sun-filled square along with his wife, Cherie. They were joined by the heads of state from more than 80 countries, including leaders as diverse as the US president, George Bush, and the Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami. Prince Charles is attending the funeral in place of the Queen.

Huge throngs of pilgrims waved Polish flags, prayed the rosary and sang hymns in the cobblestoned streets, and the Via della Conciliazione was jammed with crowds of people, many seated on streets where they had spent a chilly night in sleeping bags or wrapped in blankets. Around Rome, people gathered to watch the ceremony on giant television screens set up to cater for those not able to make it inside the walls of the Vatican.

The funeral began early this morning with an intimate ceremony attended only by high-ranking prelates, who placed a pouch of silver and bronze medals and a scrolled account of the pope's life in his coffin. The pope's body was then closed into the plain cypress coffin. After the ceremony, it will be sealed inside two other coffins before being buried in an alcove in the crypt of St. Peter's basilica.

John Paul's longtime private secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, and the master of the liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Piero Marini, placed a white silk veil over the pope's face before the coffin was closed.

The mass, scheduled to last two and a half hours, concludes with the body being carried deep under St Peter's basilica, where it will join the remains of popes from throughout the ages near the traditional tomb of the apostle Peter, the first pope.

As people waited for the Pope's pomp-filled funeral to begin, some sang hymns to strains of guitar music or breakfasted on sandwiches, oranges and bottled water. Poles were everywhere, waving red and white national flags for the first Polish-born pope.

"I came because I love the Pope," said Sabina Lufaro, 23, a singer from Turin among the faithful trying to get close enough to St Peter's square to watch the funeral on one of several giant screens. "I have all this love for a very big person. He was loved by all the world."

Young people in jeans and backpacks mingled with nuns, priests, monks and bishops clad in religious habits on streets mostly cleared of traffic after Rome's authorities imposed a daylong ban on cars and trucks. Schools and government offices closed for the day, and many private businesses did not open out of respect for the pope. City parks were dotted with tents, and people in sleeping bags dozed on benches. Some slept directly on the cobblestones, wrapped in brown blankets handed out by first aid workers.

Since John Paul's death on Saturday, some four million pilgrims have visited Vatican city and its surroundings, Rome police chief Marcello Fulvi said.

"I came because the figure of the pope is historic. I came to say thank you and to say goodbye," said Mercedes Serrat, a 65-year-old housewife from Madrid, Spain.

Metal detectors were set up at the entrance to St. Peter's, and police were running bags through X-ray machines, causing the queue to slow and some pilgrims to whistle and boo in protest. Anticipating an exodus after the funeral, Rome's city council said it was trying to organise three "human corridors" to channel people from around St Peter's to points where they could catch shuttle buses to train stations.

Yesterday people had their last chance to file past John Paul's velvet-robed body. Despite pleas from disappointed pilgrims, police blocked off the long line of faithful yesterday evening to ensure that preparations for the funeral could begin.

One group of friends from Warsaw, in John Paul's homeland of Poland, travelled by car for 24 hours but did not make it in time. Crushed, they waited outside the police barricades, holding a Polish flag.

"The hardest thing is that we'll never see him again," said 21-year-old Michal Kunela.