VATICAN CITY, April 3: Pope John Paul II’s body, its pale hands clutching rosary beads, was put on display before the world on Sunday after more than 100,000 people packed St Peter’s cobblestoned square for a huge open-air mass in memory of their “father and shepherd”.

Television images showed the pope, his face serene, dressed in red and white vestments and a white mitre.

The pontiff, who died late on Saturday, aged 84, was laid out on a raised velvet-draped dais flanked by two halberd-bearing Swiss Guards in the ornate Clementine Hall taking up two floors of the Apostolic Palace. A crucifix, crooked in his left elbow, lay alongside his body.

Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, the Cardinal Camerlengo or temporary leader of the 1.1 billion-strong Catholic Church until the election of a new pope, stepped forward to sprinkle holy water over John Paul II’s body and recited a funerary prayer.

“God, our Father, has called our Pope John Paul II to Himself. We beg the Lord to welcome him into his kingdom,” he said.

Dozens of cardinals and officials, including Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, filed past the body as mournful Gregorian chant filled the hall.

Ciampi and his black-veiled wife offered condolences to the pope’s private secretary Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who made no attempt to hide his tears. The Polish archbishop had held the pope’s hand as he died in his Vatican apartment.

Hundreds of thousands of ordinary pilgrims were to get their chance to say goodbye to the “people’s pope” on Monday, after his body was transferred in solemn procession from the hall to the adjacent St Peter’s Basilica.

It will remain there for at least three days until the pope’s funeral, which will likely take place on Thursday or Friday. Two million people are expected to attend the service, including world leaders.

Cardinals were expected to announce a date and venue for the funeral after they meet on Monday at 10:30am (0830 GMT).

Across Rome, flags were at half mast on public buildings as Italy observed three days of mourning to last to Tuesday. The Vatican’s period of mourning will go another six days beyond that.

Tributes have poured in for the late pope from every faith and every continent.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dead pope’s secretary of state who presided over Sunday’s solemn mass, said the pontiff, who battled crippling illness for months, had died a serene death.

“I was a witness to this serenity as I stood praying by the agonizing pope’s bedside,” he said, straying from his prepared text.

Grieving pilgrims wept openly when they heard their beloved pope’s last message to them, which was read out by Archbishop Leonardo Sandri: “Love converts hearts and gives peace.”

“To humanity, which sometimes seems to be lost and dominated by the power of evil, selfishness and fear, the risen Lord gives the gift of his love which forgives, reconciles and reopens the soul to hope,” it added.

The huge crowd burst into tumultuous applause as the pope’s portrait was shown on giant screens erected around the square overlooked by the pope’s apartment, from where he had made the last of his twice-weekly blessings to pilgrims last Wednesday.

A more joyous atmosphere took over St Peter’s Square after the mass, with hundreds of Italian teenagers singing hallelujah with guitars and tambourines or breaking into chants of “John Paul II” using the rhythm of a common football slogan.

Amid the grieving and commemorations, there was speculation as to who will succeed John Paul II.

A highly ritualised election process will begin April 17 at the earliest in the form of a conclave of cardinals, who will lock themselves in the Sistine Chapel until a new pontiff is chosen.

John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in four-and-a-half centuries, and the first from eastern Europe.

Born in humble conditions in Poland, he became head of the Church in October 1978 at age 58 and set about imprinting his agenda and warm, communicative style on it.

His support of the Solidarity trade union when it was banned in communist Poland was credited with helping start a chain reaction that led to the fall of the pro-Soviet regimes after 40 years.

Newsmen on Sunday heard workmen drilling in the crypt below the basilica, the traditional resting place of popes, suggesting that the 263rd pope would join most of his recent predecessors rather than being buried in Poland. The Vatican said the crypt would remain closed for three days.—AFP