Vatican Says Pope Died of Septic Shock, Cardio Collapse
Death Certificate Confirms for First Time Pontiff Had Parkinson's Disease


Poland Mourns the Loss of the Savior of Its National Soul



KRAKOW, Poland, April 2 - They were already there when the end came, perhaps 10,000 or 20,000 people, maybe more, all gathered under bare trees in the large square that lies underneath the window in the archbishop's residence where Pope John Paul II used to stand and talk to people on pastoral visits in this city.


There weren't very many tears really, though some people did weep; it was more a kind of awed stillness under the dark sky - candles lined the windows of the archbishop's residence and in the distance was the sound of a siren. And then, around 10 p.m. local time, the people who had been standing through a chilly evening for hours praying for the pope's health to be restored learned that Pope John Paul II was dead, and they sank collectively to their knees and prayed for his soul to rest in peace.

The Roman Catholic Church lost one of is most charismatic and influential leaders Saturday night, but Poland lost one of the great men of this country's turbulent and tragic history. So Krakow was out, lighting candles, saying prayers, pressing its knees onto cold pavement or trampled grass and remembering the man who represented to them nothing less than the savior of the national Polish soul.

"He was like Moses," said Przemyslaw Kalicki, who was standing in the square with his wife, Paulina and their 13-year-old son Maciej just minutes after the news of the pope's death had become known. "He led us through the Red Sea of Communism."

As Mr. Kalicki spoke, the 16th century bell of the Wawel Cathedral across town, the biggest bell in Poland, began to ring, and the members of the Kalicki family stopped to listen. The bell, which has a deep and mystical timber, has been rung rarely in its nearly 500-year history, only on historic occasions, and while nobody could tell for sure, the conviction quickly gained currency that the last time it had been heard in Krakow was in 1978 when the city's local son Karol Wojtyla was elected pope.

"The pope was very interested in that bell," said Marek Tokadski, a 46-year-old businessman visiting from Warsaw. "The pope said, 'This bell is the soul of Poland.' "

For two days, Krakow, like the rest of Poland, waited with a quiet sort of resignation the news that came Saturday night. Practically every city and town in this country it seems had its silent vigil in front of the church, often lasting through the night.

And when the end came, there was something beyond an ordinary sense of mourning, though there was that, too. There was the sense of something very large and historic occurring, the end of an era, one that began in 1978 when Karol Wojtyla was elected pope and Poland was a Communist dictatorship and, at least in part because of his moral authority, one that ended with Poland democratic and secure.

"I am happy that I lived in the time of John Paul II," President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland said on Polish television Saturday at about midnight. "We wouldn't have had a free Poland without him."

The pope will no doubt be remembered for many things here. To young people in Krakow, as in the rest of Poland, he was the only pope they had ever known, and he was an especially fatherly sort of figure, a person of religious and moral authority at a time when many traditional sources of authority, especially conventional politicians, had lost credibility. People here believed in his goodness, and while there are no doubt some Catholics here upset over his conservatism in matters of marriage and sex, what is not questioned is his moral stature and his uncanny ability to connect.

Krakow, the seat of the ancient kings of Poland whose castles are among the city's main tourist attractions, was a likely sort of cradle for a figure like the man who became Pope John Paul II. This is the city where Oscar Schindler had the factory where he saved Jews during World War II; an hour's drive away from Karol Wojtyla's birthplace, Wadowice, it is also an hour's drive in another direction from Auschwitz, the site of the ultimate horror. To many people, the fact that Karol Wojtyla started his life in the church in a clandestine study group in Krakow explains the kind of pope he became, conservative in doctrinal matters to be sure, but scholarly, eager to reach out to others, especially the Jews, and imbued with a deep agony over the suffering of others.

He was in this sense also the perfect person to reconnect Poland with its true identity lost after half a century of war and foreign domination. What that was exactly is vague, a Catholic identity perhaps, a largeness of character maybe. As Lech Walesa, Poland's other great man of recent history, the leader of the Solidarity labor union movement, once put it: the pope was 50 percent responsible for the fall of Communism; Solidarity 30 percent; the international situation responsible for the rest.


"He was the presence who created the Polish identity," the Rev. Adam Boniecki, the editor of Tygodnik Powszechny, a Catholic weekly here, and a man who knew the pope when he was a priest here. "He defined what was a Pole," Father Boniecki continued. "This was a little country. We had the feeling that we practically didn't exist, that we had been forgotten, and the pope told us who we are and that we were remembered."

Just after he became pope in 1978, Father Boniecki recalled, John Paul II went on a pilgrimage to the birthplace of St. Francis of Assissi,

"There was a group of people there," Father Boniecki remembered. "The pope didn't know where they were from, maybe Czechoslovakia. They held up a sign that said, 'Greetings from the silent church.' They meant the church from behind the Iron Curtain, the chuch that couldn't say anything.

"The pope saw the sign and said, 'There is no longer a silent church. I am its voice.'

"The pope created the possibility of giving a voice to Poland," Father Boniecki said. "He became the spokesman of Poland to the world."

The grand historical view is one that everybody accepts here, but many people spoke more personally about the pope, about the warmth of his personality, or his physical frailty on his last visit here in 1998, or, as three young women, leaning on a stone wall near the Church of St. Francis called "his honesty."

"This is a very special moment for all of us," Grazyna Koscinska, a teacher at the local agricultural university here, said, standing just outside the Church of St. Francis a few hours before the pope's death. "Because on the one hand, we should feel happy that he is going to heaven. On the other hand, it's also quite human to feel sorrow.

"All we can do is be with him and support him with our prayers," she said.

Ms. Koscinska was standing with her father-in-law, Wieslaw Koscinski, a retired hydraulic engineer, who recalled the way the pope used to stand at the window of his apartment in the archbishop's residents during the papal visits he made to Krakow during the Communist time.

"His prestige was so great, that even though the whole square was surrounded by police, I felt that this place, if only for a short time, was no longer part of the Communist world, that it was free," Mr. Koscinski said. "We felt safe."

Inside the church this afternoon a wedding took place, presided over by Andrzej Zajac, a Franciscan monk and the principle priest here. The baroque edifice, built in the 13th century, was filled people celebrating the wedding, while outside the silent vigil for the pope continued.

"For me it's very moving to see young people crying here, in the square," Father Zajacn said after the wedding was over. "But you can see that on a day when the head of the church is dying, there was a baptism in the morning and a wedding in the afternoon, because the commonwealth of the church is a living thing."

Father Zajac remembered another common story about the pope, who, when he worked in a factory here during World War II could only afford a pair of wooden sandals. "On one of his visits here after he became pope, I remember him saying, 'Who could have imagined that this worker in wooden sandals would come back here as pope?'

"This is very important," Father Zajac continued, "because it shows that anyone, even someone from a poor background, can reach the top of human possibilities."


VATICAN CITY (April 3) - Pope John Paul II died of blood poisoning and the collapse of his blood vessels, the Vatican announced Sunday, releasing the official death certificate a day after the pontiff's passing.

The certificate listed the ailments the 84-year-old pope suffered from, including acknowledging officially for the first time that John Paul had Parkinson's disease.

John Paul, who died Saturday evening, had suffered heart and kidney failure brought on by a urinary tract infection last week. The official certificate used the medical terminology for blood poisoning and blood vessel collapse, which is septic shock and an irreversible cardio-circulatory collapse.

The other ailments listed were episodes of acute breathing insufficiency and a resulting tracheotomy to insert a breathing tube in his windpipe; cardiopathic hypertension; lack of blood flow; benign prostatic hypertrophy, or non-cancerous disfunction of the prostate, complicated by the urinary tract infection spreading to the blood.

The confirmation of the death was made through a heart monitoring machine, and he was declared dead after more than 20 minutes of monitoring his heart, the document said.

"I declare that the causes of death according to my science and my conscience are those that are indicated above," said Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, the pope's personal physician, in his signing of the certificate.

VATICAN CITY (April 3) - The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, celebrated a Mass for the repose of Pope John Paul II's soul Sunday on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica, calling on the tens of thousands of people gathered there to pray for ''our beloved John Paul.''

The 84-year-old pontiff's body lay in state at the Apostolic Palace, dressed in crimson vestments, his head covered with a white bishop's miter. The Vatican released the Polish-born pope's official cause of death, saying the man who reigned for longer than all but two of his predecessors died at 9:37 p.m. Saturday of septic shock and cardio-circulatory collapse.

The written text of Sodano's homily called the late pope ''John Paul the Great,'' a title usually designated for popes worthy of sainthood, such as Gregory the Great and Leo the Great. Sodano did not use the title when he delivered the homily, and there was no explanation.

Vatican texts, however, are considered official texts even if they are not pronounced.

Applause rang out when Sodano prayed for the pope's soul at the start of the Mass.

''We entrust with confidence to the risen Christ, Lord of life and history, our beloved John Paul II who for 27 years guided the universal church as the successor of Peter,'' he said.


Applause rang out again during his homily, when he said: ''It's true. Our soul is shocked by a painful event: Our father and pastor, John Paul II, has left us. However ... he has always invited us to look to Christ, the only reason for our hope.''

He said John Paul had died ''serenely.''

Thousands of people streamed toward St. Peter's Square for the midmorning Mass, joining the faithful who held an overnight vigil in the piazza after learning of the death of the pontiff.

''John Paul held his hand to us young people,'' said 21-year-old Alessio Bussolotti, who drove to Rome on Sunday morning with his fellow Boy Scouts from the Italian city of Ancona. ''Now we have to give him ours.''

After the Mass ended, Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, who became the pope's public ''voice'' in his final weeks, read the traditional Sunday noontime prayer, which John Paul delivered throughout his pontificate. The crowd applauded when Sandri announced that the late pope had actually prepared the prayer himself before he died, saying he was reading it ''with such honor, but also such nostalgia.''

Later, the cardinals and other members of the Roman Curia, the Vatican diplomatic corps and Italian government went to the Apostolic Palace to pay their respects to John Paul, whose head rested on a golden pillow, his arms folded and a bishop's staff tucked under his left arm.


Two Swiss guards in red, blue and yellow striped uniforms stood at attention on either side of the body, which was placed in front of a fireplace in the palace's Clementine Hall adorned with the Vatican coat of arms, a crucifix standing to one side and an ornate candle burning on the other.

The guards also lined up to pay their respects, removing their plumed helmets before kneeling and praying before the pope's body.

The Mass began with a solemn parade of the College of Cardinals down the steps of the basilica. Each cardinal, dressed in flowing white robes with a golden cross on the chest, kissed the altar before taking his seat.

Before the Mass, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the late pope's vicar for Rome, issued a formal announcement of John Paul's death to the people of Rome in keeping with Vatican tradition.

John Paul was 58 when the cardinals elected him the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.

He survived a 1981 assassination attempt, but in his later years was the picture of frailty, weighed down by Parkinson's disease and crippling knee and hip ailments. Although he continued his travels, he was too weak to continue his famous gesture of kissing the ground when he arrived at his destinations.

Hospitalized twice in the past two months after breathing crises, and fitted with a breathing tube and a feeding tube, John Paul became a picture of suffering as his death approached.

To reach the Mass in his honor, pilgrims jammed the piazza and the Via della Conciliazione boulevard leading toward it, coming from every direction. Some walked their dogs, others lifted small children up on their shoulders to see better.

Still others carried rosaries, newspaper photos of the pope, flowers or the flags of their country. Many were the red and white colors from John Paul's native Poland. Police estimated the crowd at 50,000.

''It's a historic event,'' said Ercole Ferri, a 72-year-old Roman who proudly showed off a list of the six popes he has lived through. ''It's not something sad for me. I think of all that he has done.''


Others though felt sadness, even though John Paul reportedly urged his aides to feel joy and hope in his final hours.

''Joy, even if everyone feels like an orphan today,'' said Giulia Caiani, a 24-year-old Italian student who spent the night camped out in sleeping bags with friends on the square.

''He was a wonderful guide. We have no guide now, there's no longer his voice, or his presence.''

Before the Mass started, pilgrims watched four large screens placed about the square to allow the throngs who could not see the altar to follow the proceedings. Each time the camera narrowed in on someone holding up an image of the pope, people burst into applause.

A group of 10 Polish youths brought a huge Polish flag decorated with photos of the pope and messages, including one that read, ''We are with you. Thank you father.''


In a statement issued early Sunday, the Vatican said the pope's body was expected to be brought to St. Peter's Basilica no earlier than Monday afternoon. The College of Cardinals is to meet at 10:30 a.m. Monday in its first gathering before a secret election to be held later this month to choose a new pope.

The cardinals were expected to set a date for his funeral, which the Vatican said was expected between Wednesday and Friday.

The Vatican has declined to say whether he left instructions for his funeral or burial. Most popes in recent centuries have asked to be buried in the crypts below St. Peter's Basilica, but some have suggested the first Polish-born pope might have chosen to be laid to rest in his native country.