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VATICAN CITY, Apr 7 (AFP): Roman Catholics from around the world poured off planes, trains and buses and headed straight for the Vatican Wednesday to join a vast throng of pilgrims waiting in line to pay homage to the late Pope John Paul II.
Faced with a well behaved but relentless human tide which surpassed their expectations, Vatican authorities declared that the lines would close at 10.00 pm (2000 GMT), a full 36 hours before the start of the pope's funeral Friday.
Among the latest to arrive was a group of Poles from Chicago, in the United States, decked out in national costume in tribute to the polish-born pontiff who led the world's 1.1 billion Catholics for 26 years.
Undaunted by the prospect of a 12-hour wait, many in the three lines each snaking more than a kilometre (half a mile) from St. Peter's Basilica across the River Tiber said the suffocating crush was an easy cross to bear.
"If I don't see him today I'll regret it all my life, because he is already a saint," said Italian Claudia Petrantoni, who had been waiting more than 10 hours.
"The pope is calling us and it's the last time that it will be possible to see him."
A priest handing out bottled water to those in the line, Michael Kerrigan, with the order of Paulist fathers, said the pope would be "a hard act to follow" and described his death as the end of an era.
Kerrigan, originally from New York and now studying in Rome, added that John Paul "is a man who will go down in history as one of the greatest Catholics of the 20th century."
Yvonne Normann, 39, a Polish immigrant living in the Paris suburb of Montreuil, drove 14 hours with her husband and two sons to reach Rome.
The pope was a great man, she said, because he worked to reconcile the Catholic Church with other Christians and with Jews and Muslims.
But, in a veiled criticism of John Paul's conservative views, she said she hoped his successor would introduce "some small reforms, such as allowing priests to marry and more freedom for women."
For some, the trip was a religious experience. For others, a moment of history. For still others, a simple chance to say farewell.
Marco Barraco, a 20-year-old from Naples, southern Italy, said "the pope was the most popular person in the world. He was more famous than a rock star, because he united religions."
Annie, a French woman living in Rome, said she and her 13-year-old daughter were close to fainting after spending 10 hours in line overnight to file past the body lying in stately splendour in Saint Peter's Basilica.
"In the night, we stayed for four hours in a small street without moving and many people fainted," said Annie.
But she refused to give up. "We told ourselves that this was our little Way of the Cross, a way to pay homage to him and that it was worth it," she said.
"Everywhere the man went, he went with blessings," said Nigerian priest Peter Gbulum. "He went with good news, he preached liberty, he preached freedom and he preached peace."
He hoped for an African successor to the pope. "Christianity is of age in Africa."
Gisella Condemi from the southern Italian region of Calabria brought with her the memory of an address of the pope's to young Roman Catholics in 1989.
"Don't be afraid to be saints," she quoted him as saying.
The late pontiff's appeal for the youth was his refusal to compromise his values, said the 32-year-old who was accompanied by a group of 10 friends in their early 20s.
"He told (US President George W Bush the truth, that war is no good. He didn't compromise with anybody," said Condemi. The pope publicly opposed the US-led war in Iraq.
Many pilgrims carried crosses and pictures of the pontiff, who died Saturday aged 84 after years of ill health.
Good humor prevailed despite the crush as police allowed packs of hundreds to advance at once to the next stop along the line to the basilica.
AFP from Paris adds: millions of people around the world are expected to watch live on television the funeral in Rome Friday of Pope John Paul II, who remains as a big a media star in death as he was in life.
Television networks have cleared their schedules and scrambled teams of extra staff to the Italian capital to cover the funeral expected to be one of the biggest media events in many years.
Even in countries which are not traditionally Catholic, networks say the death of the "people's pope" has attracted huge interest, while in developing countries the Church has turned to the Vatican for help to ensure the world's poorest can witness the first papal funeral in 26 years.
In a rare move, all three US television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC said they intended to provide live pre-dawn coverage of the late pope's funeral exceptionally uninterrupted by commercial breaks.
"This is a major news event with deep emotional significance for millions of people around the world," a CBS spokeswoman said.
The world's biggest public broadcaster, the BBC, has also boosted its teams in both Italy and the pope's homeland Poland.
"As an event itself, it's enormously important. We feel at BBC World that it has great global significance. Our coverage will reflect the interest not just from the members of the Catholic community, but also the wider global audience," said BBC World acting head of public relations Kevin Young.
The funeral mass is to begin Friday at 10:00 am (0800 GMT), six days after John Paul II passed away, and although details have been sparse it is likely the lavish farewell to the spiritual leader of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics will follow ancient traditions.
But there has been some criticism that the wall-to-wall coverage of the pope's final hours was bordering on bad taste.
"We have been much criticised of over-playing his death throes and of having needlessly prolonged the programmes, even seeming to wait for his death live," said a spokeswoman in Paris for state channel France 3, Marie-Laure Augry.
But in France as in Spain, the three-hour requiem mass and funeral will be transmitted live in full, as it will in Germany. "It will be the biggest event in the world that day, and 200 heads of state and government will be there," said a spokesman for German channel ZDF.
Australia's multicultural broadcaster SBS will air the pontiff's funeral live for at least two hours, perhaps longer, spokesman Ian Phipps said.
"It's a service to our viewers, we are not really thinking whether we will get a large audience," Phipps said. "We know that a lot of people will be interested in watching it."
NHK, Japan's public-funded broadcasting corporation, also plans to run live footage of the funeral during its regular news programme and to broadcast a special live programme from Rome on its satellite BS channel.
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