US President George W. Bush, US First Lady Laura Bush, former US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pay their respects to Pope John Paul II in St. Peters Basilica on Wednesday. (AFP)

VATICAN CITY, 8 April 2005 — Presidents and patriarchs joined a teeming multitude of ordinary pilgrims in Rome yesterday as the world prepared for Pope John Paul’s funeral, the biggest in modern times.

Italian authorities closed the airspace over central Rome and deployed missiles to guard guests after millions of people flooded in for Friday morning’s funeral of the Polish Pope who traveled to more countries than any pontiff before him.

Thousands of pilgrims, among at least 4 million who have packed into Rome this week, waited cheerfully in warm spring sunshine after a chilly all-night vigil to be the last to see the Pope’s body lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Red-and-white Polish flags fluttered along the queue, which was far shorter than on Wednesday when anxious Rome authorities told newcomers to stay away from the saturated city.

“He was the greatest Pole there will ever be. He was our father, our friend, our liberator,” said Piotr Buchta, queuing after a 26-hour bus journey from the Pope’s birthplace Wadowice.

Nearby stood two Mexicans in gold and black sombreros.

“He came to visit us in Mexico five times, and he always said he was Mexican. This time it was our turn to come to him,” said Gilberto Mendez Silva, 38, who flew in yesterday.

While the masses queued, US President George W. Bush led the stream of political potentates and royalty due to attend the funeral, visiting the Pope’s body late on Wednesday with his two predecessors — his father, George Bush, and Bill Clinton.

Old Enemies Reunited

The “Great Satan”, part of the “axis of evil” and an “outpost of tyranny” will all gather for the funeral of Pope John Paul, who toiled for peace but whose mourners find it hard to forgive each other.

The funeral will start at 10 am (0800 GMT) in St. Peter’s Square and is expected to be one of the biggest funerals ever.

Heads of governments whose hostile exchanges have long dominated the headlines — the United States and Iran, Israel and Syria, Zimbabwe and Britain among others.

“The conviction he had about humankind, about life and about peace — it just shone through,” said the Senior Bush, aboard Air Force One as it was heading to Rome on Wednesday.

But the pacifist message often fell on deaf ears.

Tehran and Washington have been enemies since Iran’s Revolution in 1979, months after John Paul was elected Pope.

Iran’s former leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was the first to call the United States the “Great Satan”, while US President George W. Bush has said Iran is part of an “axis of evil” and accuses Tehran of secretly building nuclear arms.

In another long-standing war of words, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has described Communist Cuba as an “outpost of tyranny”.

Cuba is sending National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who will not attend the funeral, hailed the Pope as a friend of peace — but his condolences for the late Pontiff also included a jab at US sanctions on his country.

Funeral guest and Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian, too, combined piety with politics, describing his country as “the Vatican’s most faithful partner”.

The Holy See is Taiwan’s only European ally, while Beijing sees the island as a renegade province. China cut relations with the Vatican more than 50 years ago and will send no envoy to the funeral.

Seating arrangements for the funeral have not been made public, but they will require the Vatican’s finest diplomacy.

The burial will also draw visitors whose animosity has been less vocal but equally embittered.

Turkey and Armenia, which have no diplomatic relations, will both send their heads of government. Turkey is trying to counter long-standing accusations that it slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians during and after World War One, which it denies.

The only traditional foes to bring a gift of peace for the late Pontiff may be nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

Yesterday, a day before the Pope’s burial, the passengers on the first bus service in more than 50 years from Pakistani Kashmir to Indian Kashmir walked across a “peace bridge” between the two territories to resume their journey on the other side.

The region has been divided since a 1947-48 war, and the brief walk across the bridge was hailed as a possible beginning of a much longer process — forgiveness.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was on his way even though the European Union has imposed travel sanctions on his government after accusations of vote rigging in 2000.

Preparation

To allow the swarm of pilgrims to get near St. Peter’s today, all cars will be banned from Rome’s streets and public offices, schools and many shops will be closed. Two-dozen giant screens will broadcast the three-hour funeral across Rome.

Police stopped people from joining the line late on Wednesday but relented in the morning and allowed the last stragglers in to see the body before the basilica’s doors are closed later on Thursday.

A student from Belfast who had been turned away by police overnight after spending his entire savings to come to Rome was ecstatic when they let him back into line on Thursday.

“I can’t believe it,” Louis McVeigh, 21, said. “It all worked out well in the end. I’m just in shock.”

Pope’s Will

Behind the walls of Vatican City, the cardinals of the Catholic Church turned their minds to John Paul’s successor.

The Pope’s 15-page will, which was read to cardinals on Wednesday, speaks more about his spiritual legacy than the few possessions he had to pass on to his long-serving aides, a Vatican source said.

Cardinals under the age of 80 — there are 117 in all — will start a conclave on April 18 to pick the man who will inherit the throne of St. Peter.

The pope will be chosen under Michelangelo frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, and the choice announced to the world with white smoke from its chimney and the pealing of St. Peter’s bells.

The next pope faces the daunting task of leading 1.1 billion Catholics in an era marked by tension between religions, between science and ethics, between doctrine and social pressure to open up to contraception, women and married priests.

There is no favorite candidate to succeed John Paul and the former Karol Wojtyla was himself thought an outsider when he was elevated to the papacy on Oct. 16, 1978.

Cardinals have spoken openly in recent days about the kind of spiritual leader they want. But they will probably stop speaking to media after Friday’s funeral, a cardinal said.

“The cardinals have to concentrate on prayer and reflection,” Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor said.