Sombre crowd waits for word on Pope

A faithful holds a candle during a prayer in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican. Picture / Reuters

VATICAN CITY - St Peter's Square was filled as usual with tourists and faithful today, yet eyes were fixed not on the massive basilica but on a row of small windows behind which people feared the Pope lay dying.

Some stood in silent contemplation, gazing up at the Pope's apartments from where he regularly blesses the crowds. One or two Roman Catholics knelt in prayer. Many read from prayer books with rosaries in hand.

"You can really feel something in the air. There's a feeling of anticipation," said Albert de Vos, a Belgian tourist.

Like many in the square on Friday, he just happened to be in Rome when Pope John Paul's health worsened and passed through a long row of press photographers and television crews held back by a barrier to get into Vatican City.

Many tourists, who had set out to visit Rome and the Vatican early in the morning, were unaware of just how severe the Pope's condition was and went sightseeing as normal.

But during the morning a growing number of Romans and tourists arrived to pay their respects to the ailing Pope.

Two Polish nuns read a prayer for God's mercy as they looked up at the apartment of their countryman.

"I have been reading words for the whole world," said Elzbieta Zak, an elegant Italian-Polish woman praying with the nuns she had just met. "He is a man of the whole world."

"I have seen Jews here, maybe we will also see Muslims. It will be a day of unity for all human beings."

That feeling was shared by Umberto and Maria Tari, lawyers from Bari in southern Italy who had brought their young sons to see Rome for the first time.

"The Pope's pain should make the world reflect," said Maria Tari. "He is suffering as God suffers when he sees all the bad in the world."

Umberto Tari nodded. "This is a Pope who has always reached out to other religions for peace.

"He overcame the barrier between the West and the Soviet Union. The (Berlin) Wall was there to stop people talking. He was the Pope who spoke to people and said it is only through words that we can solve the world's problems."

- REUTERS