VATICAN CITY — At the end of Pope John Paul II’s funeral, the applause of thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square was already several minutes long, when the 12 pallbearers raised the plain cypress coffin to the crowd for the last time before entering St. Peter’s Basilica.

The applause grew, and tears flowed from people’s faces. For some, it brought back memories of a youthful Pope leaving a gathering on one of his many trips and then turning back to wave to the faithful.

The coffin displayed a simple, red cross with an “M” for the Blessed Virgin Mary on its right side — John Paul’s seal.

An ocean of humanity, from presidents to pilgrims to bishops, bid an emotional farewell to Pope John Paul II in a funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square.

Millions around Rome, and countless hundreds of millions worldwide, followed the more than 2½-hour Mass April 8 via television and radio.

It was a sunny, windy morning. A book of the Gospels was placed on Pope John Paul’s coffin during the funeral, and throughout the ceremony, the wind turned the pages from one side to the other until it finally closed the book.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the dean of the College of Cardinals, presided over the Mass concelebrated by 164 of the world’s 183 cardinals, vested in red. Another 500 bishops and 3,000 priests participated.

Kings, queens, presidents — including U.S. President George W. Bush — cabinet ministers and ambassadors representing more than 140 nations sat off to one side of Pope John Paul’s casket.

The political dignitaries present at the funeral included King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain, Britain’s Prince Charles and Prime Minister Tony Blair, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

On the other side of the altar sat the representatives of the Orthodox, Oriental, Anglican, Protestant and U.S. evangelical communities.

Ten Jewish and 10 Muslim organizations sent delegations, as did Buddhists, Sikhs and Hindus.

The funeral ceremony began early in the morning in Rome when Archbishop Piero Marini, master of pontifical liturgical celebrations, read the rogito, the document that recorded the life and works of John Paul II.

Archbishop Marini and Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, longtime private secretary of John Paul II, covered the Pontiff’s face with a white silk veil.

Archbishop Marini then placed in the casket a small bag of medallions, and a lead tube containing the rogito.

Applause erupted as the Pope’s  coffin was brought out from St. Peter’s Basilica and placed on a carpet in front of the altar. The Book of the Gospels was placed on the coffin.

‘Priest to the Last’

In his homily, Cardinal Ratzinger traced John Paul’s life from his days as a factory worker in Nazi-occupied Poland.

The cardinal choked up as he recalled one of John Paul’s last public appearances — when he blessed the faithful from his apartment window on Easter.

“We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father’s house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father,” Cardinal Ratzinger said as he pointed up to the third-floor window above the square.

“Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality — our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time of joyful hope and profound gratitude,” he said.

The cardinal put John Paul II’s pontificate, and life, in perspective.

“Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way! is the title of his next-to-last book,” he said. “‘Rise, let us be on our way!’ — with these words he roused us from a lethargic faith, from the sleep of the disciples of both yesterday and today. ‘Rise, let us be on our way,’ he continues to say to us even today.

“The Holy Father was a priest to the last, for he offered his life to God for his flock and for the entire human family, in a daily self-oblation for the service of the Church, especially amid the sufferings of his final months. And in this way he became one with Christ, the Good Shepherd who loves his sheep.”

The cardinal continued: “Our Pope — and we all know this — never wanted to make his own life secure, to keep it for himself; he wanted to give of himself unreservedly, to the very last moment, for Christ and thus also for us.

“The love of Christ was the dominant force in the life of our beloved Holy Father. Anyone who ever saw him pray, who ever heard him preach, knows that. Thanks to his being profoundly rooted in Christ, he was able to bear a burden which transcends merely human abilities: that of being the shepherd of Christ’s flock, his universal Church,” said Cardinal Ratzinger.

Multilingual, Ecumenical

The funeral was celebrated in Latin, with Scripture readings in Spanish, English and Latin. The prayers of the faithful were recited in French, Swahili, Tagalog, Polish, German and Portuguese. They included prayers for the eternal repose of the Pope’s soul, for the fidelity and renewal of the Catholic Church, for peace and justice in the world, for the souls of all previous popes and all deceased priests, for all the faithful departed and for those gathered at the funeral.

As at any Catholic funeral, Communion was followed by the “final commendation and farewell.” But this funeral’s farewell prayer was followed by the prayers of the Church of Rome, which is the pope’s diocese, and by the prayers of the Eastern Catholic Churches, their bishops standing before the casket in red and gold, or white, black or magenta vestments.

Then the choir sang, “I believe the Lord is risen and lives, and that one day I, too, will rise with him.”

The funeral ended with the congregation singing, “May the angels lead you into paradise; upon your arrival may the martyrs welcome you and lead you to holy Jerusalem.”

The 12 pallbearers picked up the casket and carried it toward St. Peter’s Basilica, stopping to hold up the Pope’s mortal remains one last time to face the crowd.

At the end of the Mass, for more than 15 minutes, the assembly applauded and young people chanted “John Paul” in Italian as the bells of St. Peter’s tolled somberly.

Accompanying the casket into St. Peter’s for burial were Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, the Vatican chamberlain; the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica; the former secretary of state; the papal vicar of Rome; the prefect of the papal household; the Pope’s closest personal aides, and others.

Representing other Christian communities in the procession to the tomb were Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, and Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, primate of the Anglican Communion.

The body of the Pope began its final journey into the basilica through the “door of death” on the left side of the main altar, and was taken to the downstairs grotto — the location of the tomb of St. Peter.

The Pope was buried at 2:20 p.m. Rome time in the grotto, attended by bishop members of the Pontifical Household, the Vatican said.

The coffin was sealed and wrapped with three silk ribbons before being placed in a zinc coffin, which was hermetically sealed.

The zinc coffin was then placed in an oak coffin and interred under a marble slab, inscribed with John Paul II in Latin. The tomb is in the spot left vacant by Blessed Pope John XXIII, whose body was transferred to a Vatican chapel in 2000, when he was beatified, the first step towards sainthood.

His grave is a few yards from the tomb of the Apostle Peter, next to Paul VI, and in front of John Paul I.

The funeral began a nine-day period of mourning that lasted until April 16, two days before the conclave was to begin, April 18.

The Vatican began allowing the faithful to visit John Paul’s tomb April 13.

President Bush

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Texas after the funeral Mass, President Bush said he was honored to have been present.

“Last night we hosted a reception at the embassy for many of the leaders of the Catholic Church at home, and they were very grateful that I came, and Laura came, and dad (former President George H.W. Bush) came, and President (Bill) Clinton came, and Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) came, as well as others,” Bush said. “And I told them, to a person, that it’s such an honor to represent our country at a ceremony honoring a truly great man who is and will always be a great historical figure.”

Bush said that the funeral bore witness to the world’s love and respect for John Paul. “But there’s a reason why the largest crowd ever to come and pay homage to a human happened, and it’s because of the man’s character, his views, his positions, his leadership capacity, his ability to relate to all people, his deep compassion, his love of peace,” he said.

The president said the final procession of John Paul’s casket into St. Peter’s Basilica was a particularly moving moment.

“And then I think the thing that struck all our delegation most intensely was the final scene of the plain-looking casket … being carried and held up for the seal to be seen, and then the sun pouring out,” Bush said. “This will be one of the highlights of my presidency, to have been at this great ceremony.”

(Legionary of Christ

Father Alfonso Aguilar,

Zenit News Service and CNS

contributed to this report)