Pope Benedict leads commemorative Mass for John Paul II

By Nicholas Rigillo Apr 3, 2006, 17:29 GMT

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI on Monday led a commemorative Mass for the late John Paul II in Rome's St. Peter's Square, a year and one day after his 'return to the House of the Father.'

Cardinals, bishops, diplomats and thousands of ordinary Catholics gathered under a tepid spring sunshine to hear Benedict speak of his predecessor's 'rock-like faith.'

'It was a solid, strong and authentic faith, free from fear and compromise, which infected the hearts of many people, also thanks to his numerous pilgrimages around the world, and especially thanks to that last 'journey', which was his agony and his death,' Benedict told the faithful, many of whom were from Karol Wojtyla's native Poland.

It was a subdued homely by the German-born pontiff, free of rhetoric and hyperbole, ending with an invitation to keep alive the memory of the late pontiff but also to 'look ahead'.

'Dear brothers and sisters, tonight our thoughts return, filled with emotion, to the moment of the death of our beloved pontiff. At the same time, our hearts are as if driven to look ahead,' Benedict said.

Pope John Paul II died of septic shock and an irreversible cardiovascular collapse at 9.37 p.m. on April 2, 2005. He was 84 and had for years been suffering from Parkinson's disease.

His death came after more than 26 years spent advocating peace and Christian love, steering the Church into the third millennium and inspiring millions of people, many of whom considered him a living saint.

A 60-year-old Roman present in St. Peter's Square named John Paul's ability to 'promote dialogue among cultures' as one of his redeeming features while a 35-year-old Argentinian recalled his efforts in helping when war broke out between his country and Chile, back in the early 1980s.

The Vatican has speeded up the process that will ultimately lead to his canonization but won't be drawn into saying when it will be completed.

In a recent interview with Zenit, a Catholic news agency, the prefect of the Congregation for Sainthood Causes, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, said he could not tell when John Paul II might be beatified, since the process hadn't yet reached his department.

'John Paul II's case is still in the diocesan phase, which is the first phase,' Cardinal Saraiva Martins told Zenit, 'therefore, it is the bishop-vicar of Rome who must direct the procedure, and at present he is proceeding with the research.'

The prefect said a large number of documents, including the late pope's published writings and personal letters, as well as witness accounts from the faithful attesting to John Paul's holiness, were still being collected.

Under canon law, the Church must prove that John Paul worked a miracle before it can beatify him. Only then can it search for evidence of another miracle required for canonization.

Up to 100,000 people had attended Sunday a candlelight evening vigil in the company of Benedict in the same square.

Monday's Mass capped days of commemorations by the Roman Catholic Church in Italy, Poland and around the world.