Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone held a thanksgiving mass on Monday in honour of John Paul II in front of 50,000 people, a day after Pope Benedict XVI beatified his late predecessor. Bertone paid tribute to the pope as “a shepherd”, “a witness” and “a guide”.
More than a million people had attended Sunday’s ceremony, which put John Paul II on the path to sainthood by giving him the status of “blessed”. Thousands of pilgrims since Sunday have also been filing past John Paul’s coffin, which has been exhumed and placed inside the basilica for veneration.
Some 250,000 pilgrims visited the coffin on Sunday alone, the Vatican said. The simple wooden coffin is expected to be laid to rest in a chapel near Michelangelo’s famous Pieta statue later on Monday at a private ceremony.
