'Miracle' claims as cardinals seek successor to Pope John Paul II VATICAN CITY (AFP) Polish Cardinal Franciszek Macharski (R) attends the mass lead by Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. (AFP)
Catholic cardinals took a break from their daily deliberations as an account emerged by Pope John Paul II's private secretary of a purported miracle that could help any claim for sainthood. On Saint Peter's Square, meanwhile, hundreds of people ignored the rain to visit the basilica where his body had lain in state, or to gaze up at his apartment windows, now shuttered. "There are groups, but there is no Holy Father," said Father Konrad Hejmo, who for two decades brought groups from the pope's native Poland to listen to the pontiff's weekly blessing. "It is sad without him," Hejmo, walking alone under the rain, told AFP. Throughout his 26-year pontificate, Sunday after Sunday, John Paul II read his Angelus message and blessed the crowds of thousands, occasionally tens of thousands, gathered in the square at midday. This Sunday, midday was marked only by a solemn march by an orchestra from a town near the Polish city of Lodz. "I didn't think it would affect me," said Veronica Cutrupi, a visitor from Reggio Calabria in southern Italy, "but looking at that window is moving even for those who are not necessarily close to the Church." So far, the cardinals have officially discussed only routine matters aimed at ensuring the Vatican machinery keeps running, according to Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels. Last week they focused on arrangements for the funeral, attended by around 200 leaders from across the world and an estimated million people in and near St. Peter's Square here. >From Monday, however, Danneels said they will turn to "concrete problems" and make a "check-up" of the Church ahead of a secret conclave starting April 18 when they will elect a successor. Meanwhile Italy's La Stampa daily quoted the private secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, as relating how an American who was seriously ill received communion from the pope, and was cured. According to La Stampa, Dziwisz said an acquaintance had once asked him if an American friend who was dying from a brain tumor could meet the pope. The acquaintance said the man had only three wishes: to see John Paul II, go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and return to the United States to die. At a private mass, the pope gave the sick man communion. Later, Dziwisz's acquaintance rang him to say the tumor "completely disappeared in just a few hours." In his account of the incident, Dziwisz did not speak of a miracle but of a sign of "the supreme power of God." La Stampa, though, pointed to the clamour at John Paul II's funeral Friday for him to be made a saint, and said it could be interpreted as a miracle. On Saturday, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls pointed out in answer to a question that any decisions on sainthood lay "in the sole competency" of the next pope. If he is to be canonised, his cause must include evidence of at least two miracles. Last week a Mexican teenager claimed the late pope cured his leukemia, and a nun in Colombia has said he cured her of an illness too. La Stampa claimed the Vatican had a dossier of other reported miracles from around the world. One sign of the pope's personal legacy will come when the crypt containing his tomb is opened to the public, probably Monday or Tuesday. The Vatican is observing a nine-day official mourning period which began with the requiem mass for his funeral. It continued Sunday evening with a mass celebrated at Saint Peter's Basilica by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, seen as a possible successor. Ruini said the pope's funeral took place during "days of extraordinary unity, openness of the soul to God and reconciliation".
