Impact of death felt around the world

FROM pilgrims burning candles at a grotto in France to a tiny wooden church in the Amazon, the world continued to mourn Pope John Paul II yesterday as details of his funeral were announced.

In his native Poland and across Europe, in the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, special masses were said, vigils kept and candles burned.

In the US, flags flew at half-mast on public buildings and even the Nasdaq stock market in New York held a moment of silence when dealers were asked not to trade.

But there was a discordant note too, with AIDS campaigners notably calling his ban on condom use, abhorrence of homosexuality and conservatism on women’s rights as bleak failures in the fight against HIV.

In John Paul’s native land, the mourning continued amid a common refrain: the death of the national hero has left them feeling orphaned.

“This death is a shock to me,” said Danuta Bialek, 50, a nurse mourning with tens of thousands in Lagiewniki, a sanctuary near Krakow. “He offered us enormous support and help, opening the world to us. I still cannot imagine the world without him.”

When Karol Wojtyla was elected pope in 1978, his country was isolated from the West under an atheistic communist regime hated by most in this predominantly Roman Catholic nation. Today, his land is a democratic nation of regular churchgoers rooted firmly in the West.

With him gone, Poles now wonder what path their society will take.

The initial outburst of religious expression that erupted during the pope’s illness and death may be followed by an erosion of religiosity in the future, political analyst and the head of the Public Affairs Institute Lena Kolarska-Bobinska said.

“Many people adhered to religion because of him, because he was so unquestionably loved,” she said “I am sure with his disappearance, Poland will become more secular.”

Pilgrims burned candles at the grotto at the healing shrine in Lourdes, France, where the pontiff prayed twice during his last foreign trip in August.

However, leading French left-wingers sparked a row after criticising President Jacques Chirac’s government for lowering flags on official buildings in tribute to the Pope, which they said breached the state’s secular principles.

In a tiny wooden church shadowed by towering jungle trees, two dozen Amazonian Indians, gathered in Brazil to pray for Pope John Paul II’s soul.

Singing hymns to the beat of a single drum carved from rain forest wood, parishioners living along a tributary of the Amazon remembered John Paul as an advocate for agrarian reform key to the drive of Brazil’s Indians to protect their traditional lands from encroaching loggers and soy farmers.