‘We are sad but our tears have dried up’

THE souvenir sellers were busy enough as the cameras snapped the famous sights in Rome and the normal number of tourists for this time of year wandered around.

It was as though Rome had forgotten its honorary citizen who lay in a cypress coffin on the steps of St Peter's Basilica across the River Tiber.

The Pope's own Cathedral St John Latern, that traces its roots back to Constantine, was empty except for a few curious visitors.

A huge picture of John Paul II taken when he visited the church near the Irish college a few years ago, stood beside the altar once reserved only for him.

A short distance away, only a very few sat on the ground in front of the giant screen set up at the coliseum, to relay the funeral Mass. The most readily recognisable of Rome's buildings, built by Jewish slaves and with gold from Jerusalem's temple, was attracting only tourists.

The screens showing events at the Vatican had a message running along the bottom warning against pushing others.

But it was clearly unnecessary as small groups sat in the freshening air.

The first indication that something momentous was happening in the vicinity was the sound of the Vatican choir to be heard through the ancient Forum.

A little distance away, facilities had been set up specifically for young people in the Circus Maximus, the site of famous Roman chariot races of old.

But even here, encircled by medical stations, ambulances, fire brigades and portable toilets, the few hundred people were dwarfed in the huge site. The mourners were predominantly Polish the Romans appeared to have moved on. They were commemorating Il Papa, in posters all over the city.

Fr Philip, a Franciscan, making his way out through the hundreds of thousands that thronged the Vatican was not surprised life had returned to normal in the city.

"The Romans came here at Easter. They knew it would be the last time they would see him and they said goodbye then.

"He tried but he could not speak. I was there. Everyone was weeping. We are sad now but our tears have dried up and we just thank the Lord for the gift of this Pope," he said.

But the next job, finding a replacement for John Paul II, would not be easy.

"He was not just a Pope for the Polish but for the whole world and he changed the world.

"We have to find another leader for the world. It will not be easy."

Those that came from all over the world were making their way too out of the Vatican city.

The Italian security force of more than 6,500 officers, at what seemed like the flick of a switch, opened the barriers and managed the chaos as beautifully as they had all week. The cleaners moved in and, within a short space of time, the blankets, the cardboard, the plastic bottles and the rest of the debris of a few million people was cleared away.

There was a sense the Italians had seen much of this before and were settling down to see who the next Il Papa will be.

Across the city a handful of tourists stood in front of a mosaic in the Church of San Paola with its portraits of all the Popes from St Peter. The legend says that when there is no more room left for another portrait the world will come to an end. There are just eight spaces left now that John Paul II has died.