Thousands of mourners threw flowers on a slow-moving hearse and joined an enormous viewing line at Warsaw’s Presidential Palace to pay their respects to Lech Kaczynski and his wife as their bodies lay in state.

Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to the legacy of his predecessor John Paul II, five years after his death, amid questions over the late pontiff's record in combating paedophile priests and whether a miracle needed for his sainthood really happened.

CATHOLICS around the world marked the third anniversary of Pope John Paul’s death yesterday and Vatican officials said they were receiving a steady stream of pleas from the faithful convinced he was a saint.

The Pope praised the “human and supernatural” qualities of John Paul II during a mass marking the third anniversary of the Polish pontiff’s death today.

A SECOND prominent Catholic clergyman quit his post yesterday amid allegations he collaborated with Poland’s Communist-era secret police, a day after Warsaw’s new archbishop resigned after admitting he had cooperated with the despised agency.

Pope Benedict XVI, making sentimental stops in his predecessor’s homeland, brought joy to Poles by announcing that he hopes John Paul II will be made a saint “in the near future".

Pilgrims began arriving in Rome today to mark the first anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death, praying by his tomb and preparing for an evening vigil tomorrow night in St Peter’s Square to commemorate the exact time of his passing.

POPE Benedict installed his first group of new cardinals on Friday, elevating 15 men from Hong Kong to Boston to join the exclusive Catholic group that advises him and will one day elect his successor.

Fifteen prelates from around the world joined the elite College of Cardinals in the Vatican today, becoming the newest advisers to the Pope who one day will be called on to elect his successor.

POPE Benedict XVI named a first batch of cardinals to elect his successor yesterday, sending strong political messages with nominations in Hong Kong and Venezuela and promoting two Americans with experience in the Church sex abuse scandal.

The Archbishop of Dublin has not been included in Pope Benedict XVI's first ever list of new cardinals.

THE Turk who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 will be released from prison on Thursday, but he then may be tried in a military court for allegedly dodging the draft and escaping military custody, an official said yesterday.

Poland’s Roman Catholic Church has invited Pope Benedict XVI to visit the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz during his expected visit to the country in May.

STRUGGLING to breathe, Pope John Paul II mumbled his final words in Polish: "Let me go to the house of the Father." Six hours later, the comatose pontiff died, the Vatican says.

Pat Brosnan

The process to beatify Pope John Paul II opens officially today with a solemn ceremony in which all the clerics involved will take an oath of secrecy – and promise not to be corrupted by taking any money or gifts that might sway their decisions.

IN a sign he intends to follow in the steps of his predecessor and reach out to other religions, Pope Benedict XVI has invited the chief rabbi of Rome to his inauguration, said a spokesman for Rome’s Jewish community.

PRESIDENTS, prime ministers and kings joined pilgrims and prelates in St Peter’s Square yesterday to bid an emotional farewell to Pope John Paul II at a funeral service that drew millions to Rome for the largest gathering of the powerful and the humble in modern times.

The Vatican shut the doors of St Peter’s Basilica tonight, ending four days of visits by pilgrims who streamed past the remains of Pope John Paul II, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The identity of a cardinal Pope John Paul selected in 2003 but never publicly identified is still a mystery – at least for another day, the Vatican said.

Pope John Paul II, the Polish pontiff who led the Roman Catholic Church for more than a quarter century and became history’s most-travelled pope, died tonight in his Vatican apartment. He was 84.

In a sign of the decline of Pope John Paul II's decline, several cardinals from the US and Latin America said they were heading to Rome.

WITH the health of Pope John Paul II rapidly deteriorating, Church officials are bracing themselves for the dramatic changes that will come at the Vatican with the Pontiff’s death.

The Pope was clinging to life in grave condition today after suffering heart failure, but he was still lucid, fully conscious and ”extraordinarily serene,” the Vatican said.

Pope John Paul was in a “very grave” condition today and appeared close to death after suffering heart failure, the Vatican said.

A Polish priest from John Paul II’s birthplace said today he had been told by The Pope’s closest aide that the pontiff might leave hospital on Monday or Tuesday.

THE Vatican pronounced what it hoped was the last word yesterday on whether the Pope ever offered an endorsement of Mel Gibson’s controversial biblical epic The Passion of the Christ.

THE Vatican pronounced what it hoped was the last word yesterday on whether the Pope ever offered an endorsement of Mel Gibson’s controversial biblical epic The Passion of the Christ.

The Pope has not endorsed Mel Gibson’s controversial Biblical epic The Passion of the Christ, the pontiff’s secretary said.

A leading European cardinal said today that Pope John Paul was nearing “the last days and months of his life,” the latest prelate to express alarm over the 83-year-old pontiff’s health.