People Throughout the World Mourning Pope John Paul II
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: We're at the midpoint for you. Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.</s>DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Daryn Kagan. Here's a look at what's happening now in the news. Remembering Terri Schiavo. Schiavo's family and friends will attend a funeral for her tonight in Florida. The brain-damaged woman died last week. Her husband had her body cremated, and he plans to bury the ashes in Pennsylvania. Schiavo's parents opposed the cremation and had hoped to bury her in Florida. Jurors in the Michael Jackson trial are hearing accusations of abuse from the son of a former Jackson maid. About an hour from now, the 24-year-old witness will take the stand again. During tearful testimony yesterday, the accuser said Jackson molested him 15 years ago during what he called a tickling game. The cost of filling up has gone up again. The average cost for a gallon of regular climbed to $2.22 Monday, setting a record for the third week in a row. Now a national poll shows the majority of Americans are saying high gas prices are causing them financial hardships. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is calling for a national election on May 5th. Blair's call for the election kicks off a four- week campaign. Despite lingering feelings against Britain's involvement in the Iraq war, polls show Blair and his Labor Party have a slim lead over the Conservative Party.</s>SANCHEZ: And we have been telling you, and showing you, people throughout the world are mourning Pope John Paul II, a man who sat on the throne of St. Peter for the past 26 years. Now these are live pictures that we've been showing from the scene there are at the Vatican, where thousands, thousands are lining up to view the body of the pope, as it lies in state at the St. Peter's Basilica, and they are participating hours in most cases. What we want to do now is give you more of a global perspective on the pope and the Catholic Church, especially, especially given the religious tensions that we're now experiencing worldwide, and to do that, we're going to turn to Charles Sennott. He's the European bureau chief for "The Boston Globe," and he's written extensively about that. In fact, he has a book out. It's titled "The Body and the Blood." Charles, thanks so much for being with us. We appreciate it.</s>CHARLES SENNOTT, AUTHOR, "THE BODY AND THE BLOOD": Thank you.</s>SANCHEZ: Let's start with this. We're going to show some pictures. We want to you look at it as our viewers look at it as well. This is a picture of the pope when he went to the Middle East, and he was there in front of the Western Wall. What particular significance did this have, and why did it take so long for a pope to go to a place like this, the Holy Land, it would seem inconceivable he was the first.</s>SENNOTT: He's not the first, of course, because St. Peter, the first pope, the Galilean fishermen, would have been there, right there in the second temple of Judaism, which have been the setting in which, of course, Jesus is both born, crucified, and as Catholics, or Christians, would believe, is risen. But since St. Peter, what had happened with Christianity was that there developed a kind of weed, pretty vile weed within Christianity of anti-Semitism, and that kind of grew and grew, and I'd say it even kind of cracked the foundations of what Christianity is all about, in the Holocaust, in World War II, and there's been this kind of accruing history of tension between Judaism and Christianity, and Catholicism, in particular, and this pope made an unbelievable gesture, when he stood before the Western Wall, and touched those ancient stones, and put his prayer for interfaith understanding in those walls, he was saying, we want to heal that break that's between Catholicism and Judaism. He's saying, I am the pope who was from Krakow in Poland, only 45 minutes from Auschwitz, during the Holocaust. There's no man On earth who I think whose personal narrative could bring him to that point with that poignancy. I think it was really one of the extraordinary moments of his papacy.</s>SANCHEZ: I think you're right. And I think, it's interesting, when you look at that video, and I was looking at it today before you and I started this conversation, and you see him when he's praying at the wall, almost as if he's talking to the ancestors of Jews, as if saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for this rift. There it is now. It really was quite a moment.</s>SENNOTT: Not only is he talking to the ancestors of Jews, as the pope put it, Jews are the older brother of Christianity, and he said, we must look at Judaism as our older brother. And this is a pope whose interfaith message was so compelling, he went to Israel with such a spirit of asking for forgiveness for the sins of anti-Semitism in the past, that he was really embraced by Israel, and I think I can say from Israeli reporters I know, he was loved. But what's unique also about this pope on that holy land trip, was that he also stole the hearts of the Palestinians by coming with a message of justice.</s>SANCHEZ: And that's interesting, Charles, because what you raise is the issue of the pope healing not only with Jews, but now the work to be done still when it comes to Islam, which seems to be winning the popularity contest in places like Africa. Is that why they really need to give strong consideration to the cardinal from Nigeria?</s>SENNOTT: It is. I think when you think about it, this papacy began in 1978, and the world was divided between the East and the West. This pope was a very powerful voice that helped to tear down that wall, the Berlin Wall, and really helped put solidarity in motion so that the collapse of the Soviet Union happened. Now the world, I think, is more clearly divided between north and south, between the rich and the poor. And when people say this pope is conservative, I think they misunderstand who he is, because so many of his messages are so, what we would, I guess, call the opposite of conservatives, is liberal in political terms. But there about caring for poor people. It's about not only was communism an impressive force; this pope has said capitalism has also trapped people in poverty, and that we need to be careful about the greed of capitalism. This pope has spoken in the third world that way.</s>SANCHEZ: Since you raise that topic, let me ask you a tough question, does the next pope need to appear to defy the United States in an effort to win credibility in places like Islam?</s>SENNOTT: I don't think so. I think that's maybe too starkly put. This pope did defy the United States in terms of the position of the Bush administration in Washington. This pope spoke out eloquently and powerfully against the war in Iraq. He said, it's a disproportionate war and it's an unjust war, because it's a preemptive war. Sadly, I think, we in the media, myself included, we didn't maybe pay enough attention to that message. Here was this man with this powerful message. I don't think that resonated very strongly in America, maybe because we didn't carry it enough or maybe Americans didn't want to hear it, but this pope had a direct confrontation with the United States government in Washington.</s>SANCHEZ: Fascinating conversation. The book is called "The Body and the Blood." Charles senate, reporter for "The Boston Globe," thanks for taking the time to talk to us.</s>SENNOTT: Thank you.</s>KAGAN: Mourners from around the world are in Rome. Thousands are waiting to enter St. Peter's Basilican to pay their final respects. As we take a look at a live picture there, our Anderson Cooper takes us to St. Peter's Square, among the mourners.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They waited for hours to see their pontiff. They waited for hours for one final glimpse. In St. Peter's sun-kissed square there was no pushing, no shoving, just somber faces, the smiles of old friends. A giant bell rang out, the sound nearly lost amidst the songs and the psalms, the prayers for the pope. (on camera): The crowds have been building for the last several hours. The square is now packed. It's very hard to move around. There are giant video monitors, which have been set up so that the crowd can see the pope's body lying in state. No one is exactly sure where the pope's body will be brought. People are -- there are certain avenues which have been opened up in the crowd, but no one is exactly sure where his body is going to be taken. Everyone wants to get close enough to try to see the pope, but they know they won't be able to touch him, though many would no doubt like to. But they just want to see him, one glimpse of him in person. (on camera): You wish you were taller?</s>SISTER ELIZABETH MORRIS, AUSTRALIAN NUN: Yes, I do. I do. I'm only 5 foot and I can't see very much. I've been holding my camera up hoping that it will take something, and I'm straining to see the screen. But, yes, I wish I were taller.</s>COOPER (voice-over): Sister Elizabeth Morris, an Australian nun, stood on her tip toes, but the crowds were too big, the people too tall.</s>MORRIS: See that screen a little better, but it's too far away, though. Being here is...</s>COOPER: A young girl sat on the shoulders of her father, taking pictures for strangers who gave her their phones. (on camera): In America we've become used to seeing makeshift memorials spring up in the wake of national tragedies. Well here in Italy the tradition is a little bit different, people leave cards and messages and flowers by lampposts. In St. Peter's Square there are half a dozen or so lampposts and all of them are filled with personal messages to the pope. (voice-over): This one says Gracie, thank you, we love you. Addio, Karol. Children left drawings, their portraits of the pontiff. Five-year-old Mikhail (ph) simply scribbled his name. "The pope is like flowers," he said. He makes me think of flowers. (on camera): It's not just a sense of mourning here in St. Peter's Square, there is certainly that, there is sadness. But there's also joy, a celebration of the life of a remarkable man and an extraordinary pope. (voice-over): When his body appeared there were tears and applause. Those unable to see watched the TVs very closely. (on camera): This is certainly an event that is being broadcast around the world. But standing here in St. Peter's Square, you don't get the sense that this is a media event, there are not many cameras around. All the media are sequestered hundreds of yards over there on bleachers. Standing in the crowd there's an intimacy to it. It's extraordinarily moving.</s>CASEY SHAVER, PENNSYLVANIA RESIDENT: To be surrounded by it all and actually see it happening in front of you with your own eyes, it's just something you can't describe. It's really amazing.</s>LISA REALI, NEW YORK RESIDENT: You saw him on the screen, of course, as they carried him through around the church.</s>PETER REALI, NEW YORK RESIDENT: We waited three hours and we finally saw him on the screen.</s>COOPER: You waited three hours?</s>P. REALI: Yes, it was exactly, and it was an unbelievable experience.</s>COOPER: Were you disappointed not to actually see him in person or?</s>P. REALI: You know it would have been better, but you know we have him in here, in our hearts.</s>COOPER (voice-over): Even those who didn't get close to the body came away feeling they had seen the pope. One man told us John Paul is dead, but we still keep him alive in our hearts. Anderson Cooper, CNN, Vatican City.</s>SANCHEZ: More than a pope. Pope John Paul also a sportsman, a philosopher, a poet. His poetry, powerful and spiritual. You're going to hear some of his work in just a moment.</s>SANCHEZ: A lot of people are interested in hearing Pope John Paul's personal feelings about religion. Much of that expressed, as a matter of fact, in his poetry.</s>KAGAN: We'll share some of that with you when we come back.</s>SANCHEZ: And we welcome you back. During his 26-year papacy, it's impossible to know just how many lives Pope John Paul II touched or how many people that he blessed. What we do know that his words helped to change the world. As CNN's Aaron Brown reports, the man so obviously familiar with bible verses was also very creative with poetic verses as well.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Before he was Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla was an intellectual and a playwright, a philosopher and a poet. He once said that poetry is a great lady to whom one must completely devote oneself. He would exchange that for a devotion of a different sort but because of his love of words, we are left with a rare window into a complex soul.</s>MSGR. LORENZO ALBACETE, FRIEND OF POPE JOHN PAUL II: The pope's poetry is absolutely essential to understand who he was, how he experienced and lived his humanity.</s>BROWN: The man who would become the pope grew up during World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland. He watched as friends were taken to the concentration camps, some to never return. He wrote about the evils of war he saw firsthand. His old friend Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete reads "The Armaments Worker"."</s>ALBACETE: "I cannot influence the fate of the globe. Do I start wars? How can I know whether I am for or against? No, I don't see. It worries me not to have influence that it is not I who sin. I only turn screws, weld together parts of destruction, never grasping the whole or the human lot."</s>BROWN: The future pope's childhood in Poland was marked by hurt and loss. His mother died when he was just 9 years old. And 10 years later, at 19, he wrote of that pain, a pain still raw.</s>ALBACETE: "Over this, your white grave, oh, mother, can such loving cease? For all its filial adoration, a prayer. Give her eternal peace."</s>BROWN: In these early works, there are glimpses of the man who would become pope, the romantic. In his poem "Girl Disappointed in Love," he conveys a sense of heartbreak in way that suggests at the time he thought, he might, just might, know of that love firsthand.</s>ALBACETE: "With mercury, we measure pain, as we measure the heat of our bodies and air. But this is not how to discover our limits. You think you are the center of things. If you could only grasp that you are not. The center is he. And he, too, finds no love. Why don't you see? The human heart, what is it for? Cosmic temperature. Heart. Mercury."</s>BROWN: As Pope John Paul got older, his poems changed as well, an assassin's bullet, first, Parkinson's disease then changed his physical self. But he would face that stage of life with courage and, his writings suggest, face it with honesty as well.</s>ALBACETE: "Maturity is also fear. The end of cultivation is already its beginning. The beginning of wisdom is fear."</s>BROWN: Many of Pope John Paul's poems are, of course, deeply religious. His book of poems written while pope is a three-part medication on life and death and nature. In these writings, he discusses his own death, revealing that he had no intention ever of stepping down from the papacy, no matter how sick.</s>ALBACETE: "So, it was in August and again in October, the same memorable year of two conclaves, and so it will be once more when the time comes after my death."</s>BROWN: No doubt, John Paul will be remembered best by his travels, by his deeds, by the many millions of people he touched. But he leaves behind for all of us to consider a legacy of words. Perhaps an appropriate eulogy can be drawn from words he once wrote about his own mother's death.</s>ALBACETE: "There is a stir in the air, something uplifting and, like death, beyond comprehension."</s>BROWN: Aaron Brown, CNN, Rome.