Apr 2, 2005 1:07 am US/Pacific
Business As Usual At The Vatican
Businesses Operate As Thousands Gather In St. Peter's Square
VATICAN CITY (AP) ―
Pilgrims, tourists and Italians filled St. Peter's Square again Saturday to keep spiritual company with Pope John Paul II as his life ebbed away, hours after tens of thousands of people packed the vast space in a nighttime vigil.
While the world waited for word on the pope, Vatican businesses such as the pharmacy and post offices opened to the public as usual.
In the square, the crowd, which had dwindled from about 70,000 to a few hundred in the hours just before dawn, began growing again, with thousands arriving.
Many people faced the Apostolic Palace, reading Bibles or using cameras or cell phones to snap pictures of the pope's apartment windows overlooking the square. One woman near the central obelisk was reading a biography of the pontiff; another read aloud from a prayer book.
Valeria Lapenna, a 24-year-old university student, stood in the square with her suitcase. She said she had been in Naples on Friday with a bus ticket to return to her hometown in Bari, southern Italy, when she heard of the pope's deteriorating health and decided to come to Rome. She had been in the square for about 18 hours, she said.
"We are waiting to hear something, even if the pope is in the same condition," Lapenna said, clutching a radio. At this point, "I hope that he dies, that he rests without suffering any more. Since he is mentally lucid, it's a double suffering for him."
Tourists waited patiently in line to go through security screening to enter the basilica — both to visit it and to pray.
Hours earlier, a huge crowd had kept silent vigil under the pope's windows to lend him solace in his spiritual journey toward death. Most in the crowd were silent, and the rustling of water from the two fountains in the square could be heard across the vast space.
"The silence is beautiful," said 26-year-old Claudio Schipani of Rome. He was with his sister, Giorgia Schipani.
The two said they thought of the pope as a grandfather.
"Afterward, there will be a great void," Ms. Schipani said. "He was different. He did something that no one else did. He is the pope of the people, of all the people," she said. "I think even those who aren't believers will shed a tear for him."
"He's always a father to me," said Marzena Lesniak, a Pole who moved to Rome 15 years ago. She was with her husband and young son, who often accompanied her to the square on Sundays, when the pope would bless the crowd.
"You felt his suffering," Lesniak said, speaking of the last few times John Paul appeared in his window, grimacing and unable to pronounce a word.
Police said they expected hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to arrive in the city over the next few days.
The city transport system said it was expanding service on bus and subway lines to the Vatican. State radio said portable toilets would be installed near the square.
(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
