Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Special Edition: Remembering Pope John Paul II

Aired April 03, 2005 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It's a privilege to be here in Rome this evening. It has been an extraordinary 24 hour period since the pope's passing Saturday night at 9:37 p.m. in Vatican City.
I want to show you a live picture right now of St. Peters Square, the heart of Vatican City, the heart of St. Peters. You can just see there in the shadow the saints, the apostles of the statues that's in the foreground - in the background, you see just a few people huddled around flames, silently praying, talking with one another, remembering Pope John Paul II. Near those candles both for warmth and lighting a candle in the darkness.

Also want to show you three dark windows, windows we have been watching a lot in these last 48 hours, the windows of the papal apartments. As we hear church bells ringing at this late hour, the papal apartment, the lights have been extinguished, the life of John Paul II extinguished.

Let's listen in.

(BELLS TOLL)

Church bells ringing out across Vatican City. Those three windows, those are the papal apartments where John Paul II died some 24 hours ago. The lights were on for much of last night, as we broadcast from here, symbolizing that there was still life, still activity going on inside those apartments.

But at some point today, the lights went out. The life of John Paul II went out as well.

He lay in state today. We are covering extensively over these next two hours. We're going to be joined from New York by Paula Zahn and also my colleague senior international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, who is also here in Rome with me. We'll be talking with all of them shortly.

But first, we want to talk about what happened today. Today, the people of Rome, the people of the world got to see their pontiff once again. In these last days and weeks and hours of his illness, while he was struggling and in pain, we did not see the pontiff. The last living shot we saw of him was in that balcony window, where he was clearly in pain, clearly suffering, and in his final days.

But in the last few hours, we didn't see him. But today, once again, we saw him. His body, at least, lying in state, his soul departed, his body peaceful, at rest, visited by dignitaries, leaders of the church, and friends of the pontiff.

Of course, these next few days, as he will lie in state in St. Peters Basilica, where some two million people are expected to come and see him once again to pay their respects, to get one last glimpse of the pontiff they have come to love, some two million people expected. It will be an extraordinary several days.

And in these extraordinary days, it will - they will be days draped with tradition and ritual.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The bells of the churches of Rome tolled in unison, telling all who could hear them, the pope had passed away.

(SINGING)

Today, 50,000 of the faithful gathered in St. Peters Square for a mass honoring the holy father, drawn together in their grief, their prayers mixed with tears.

That mass was celebrated by Angelo Cardinal Sodano, former Vatican secretary of state and a possible successor to the papacy, who said of his friend and longtime spiritual adviser, "he died with the serenity of the saints."

And inside the apostolic palace, his home for 26 years, in the very chapel where John Paul II would say his morning prayers, members of his inner circle, the cardinals who were closest to him, his friends and dignitaries, came to pay their respects.

It seems everything that follows the death of a pope is wrapped in ancient ritual. But this was a break from tradition, the first time pictures of the body of a pope were shown to the public via Vatican TV.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: That decision is made by the camerlengo Cardinal Martinez Somalo, who at this point in time during the interregnum, when there is no pope, makes most of those administrative decisions. So it shows a great openness on his part towards the media.

COOPER: He lay, stretched out on a simple slab made of marble, a wooden crucifix at his head, his bishop staff tucked under his arm.

GALLAGHER: The pope in the first instance is a bishop. He's a bishop of Rome. And a bishop in the Catholic church is one of the most important positions. And the staff represents the staff, much as a shepherd of his flock carries a staff. So the pope and any bishop carries the staff during ceremonies.

COOPER: And he's dressed in bright crimson and white robes, the colors of the papacy, wearing a white miter on his head.

As in every ritual, each gesture, every nuance has a deeper meaning. GALLAGHER: Well, the white is purity. And the red is for the flames, for fire, which cleanses. So those are traditional garments in the church that are used at various times during the liturgical year.

COOPER: The pope was declared dead last night by a doctor. But then, according to custom, the camerlengo or chamberlain called out his Christian name, Karol, three times, then pronounced that the pope had died.

His body was embalmed, but there is another tradition that may or may not have been followed.

GALLAGHER: Sometimes the organs are removed if they want to be placed in another place, other than in the tomb under St. Peters.

COOPER: The pope's body may have been taken to the Sistine Chapel last night, but it was moved this morning to the apostolic palace, where he was blessed with holy water as mourners gathered to pray and say good-bye.

GALLAGHER: Yes, that's the final blessing of the pope, provided by the camerlengo, who is in charge during this time when there is no pope. And it's the last blessing. The pope, of course, must be blessed. And so he's blessed by those cardinals around him as a final send off.

COOPER: Tomorrow, more ritual rules the mourning of John Paul II. His body will be moved to St. Peters Basilica, where more than two million people are expected to see him lying in state, a chance for the faithful to say a final farewell to the man they called "father."

The day of the funeral has not been set, but if tradition holds, the pope will join half his predecessors who are laid to rest in the grotto beneath the basilica, entombed forever under that magnificent house of worship and held forever in the hearts of those who mourn his passing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And of course, it has been a very emotional time right here in Rome and in Vatican City. CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour has been monitoring reaction here in Rome, and also around the world - Christiane?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR. CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We are, if you like, at street level. The basilica, that one can see behind you, is also just down here behind where this huge broad boulevard will be jammed packed with pilgrims who come over the next several days to get a chance to go around the lying in state when his body is actually placed in public on public view in St. Peters Basilica.

And then, of course, they will all want to be here for the funeral. And we're still awaiting that and those details. And that is going to start, we understand, in a few hours when the congregation of cardinals start their meetings at 9:00 a.m., that's in about five hours from now, on Monday morning, to actually lay out formally the sequence of events for what happens over the next few days.

And in the meantime, while all these pilgrims are preparing to come here, people are already sending their condolences, obviously, remembering the pope, not just here, but all over the world.

Well, we were going to show you a report of people all over the world, who had been so touched by Pope John Paul II, from South Africa, to the rest of the African continent, Latin America, where the church is growing quite rapidly, all over Europe, and even to places such as the former Soviet Union, which he works so hard to try to bring down communism.

The former Soviet leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev, his successor, the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, have expressed their condolences. And so, too, have leaders in countries which don't have large Christian populations, which are, for instance, entirely Muslim, such as Indonesia, such as Pakistan, which the pope also visited. We have that report now. And here are some good-byes from around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Wherever you look, the scenes are the same - prayers and music in South Africa and in Nagasaki, Japan.

(SINGING)

Reminders that the pope was a global figure. And his death has become a global event. There are tears in the Philippines and in Africa's Ivory Coast. Candles at Notre Dame in Paris and in Phuket, Thailand.

An estimated 100,000 people turned out for a service in Warsaw, Poland, the pope's homeland.

Bells rang out in Puerto Rico. Mariachi music played in Mexico. World leaders are paying tribute as well.

TONY BLAIR, PRIME MINISTER, U.K.: What people could see in Pope John Paul was a man of true and profound spiritual faith, a shining example of what that faith should mean.

AMANPOUR: There were expressions of sorrow from Israel's government, from Palestinian leaders, from Christian churches like this one in Nazareth, and even from the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which took note of the pope's statement on Palestinian rights.

There were reactions from places you might not expect. Cuba, where the pope paid a visit in 1998, declared three days of mourning. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has strained relations with the Vatican wrote, "May his memory live forever."

The man who tried to kill the pope nearly a quarter century ago, Mehmet Ali Agca (ph), is said by his brother to be extremely saddened, in grief.

In his years as pope, John Paul II traveled the distance equal to that of the earth to the moon, three times. He made 104 trips outside of Italy and saw more than 120 countries.

Millions saw him over the years. Today, in all their diversity, the people of the world remembered. And they said thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And as we've said, they will come and go around and pray around the body of Pope John Paul when it is laid in state later today, Monday, in St. Peters Basilica.

And already the cardinal - Secretary of State of the Vatican - Cardinal Angelo Sodano has caused some ripples here. A lot is being made of what he wrote about the pope in his text today of the homily. He calls him Pope John Paul the Great, implying that perhaps he would be made a saint because only two popes in the past have been called great. And they were many, many centuries ago in the Dark Ages.

So a lot is being made of that, which he actually wrote, but didn't utter during a homily today - Paula?

ZAHN: And Christiane, a lot of superlatives being thrown out around here in the United States. There was a poll that was conducted by CNN/USA TODAY, a poll among American Catholics, showing that two- thirds of them believe that Pope John Paul II is the greatest pope ever.

When Raymond Flynn left his job as mayor of Boston, President Bill Clinton appointed him America's ambassador to the Vatican. Now while he served in that role for just four years, Ambassador Flynn knew the pope for decades.

And tonight, he reflects on a man who is much loved in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAYMOND FLYNN, FORMER BOSTON MAYOR: I first met him in September of 1969, when he came here as Father Wojtyla from Krakow, Archbishop of Krakow at the time.

He came to the Polish community, developed a lot of friends. I'll never forget the night that he became pope, where spontaneously, you know, people heard the news breaking out of the Vatican that a Pole had been elected pope. And they didn't know quite what to do.

So everybody went down to the church, down here at Lady of Chester Church, it's the church where I was born - brought up in, and just to see this scene of Polish-American people from all over Massachusetts, coming into celebrate and rejoice.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: I want to tell everyone that the pope is your friend.

(APPLAUSE)

FLYNN: And then of course, October 1, 1979, when they had that famous mass at the Boston Common. Boston's had a special place for John Paul II for many, many years. This man is not just my spiritual leader, but he's a personal friend.

I will have an extraordinary difficult time trying to replace him in my heart, because he has been such an important piece of my life, an important part of my family.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Ray Flynn with some intensely personal reflections of a man he came to know and love.

When we come back, what might have been the story of the moment, the wedding of Camilla and Charles. Yes, it will happen as scheduled on Friday. That and much more from Rome, as our special report continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: And in a moment, who could be the next pope? A lot of speculation about that. We're going to go over some of the possibilities for you a little bit later tonight.

But first, at about 17 minutes past the hour, a look at some of the other stories making news tonight. Carol Lin is standing by in Atlanta.

Hi, Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, Paula. We've got some news out of Washington state right now. An Amtrak train derailed today in the Colombia River gorge. Up to a dozen passengers were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The rest of the 115 people on board were taken to a shelter. All four cars of the Empire Builder derailed, but remained upright leaning against an embankment.

Syria's president tells a U.N. envoy he will complete his troop withdrawal from Lebanon by the end of the month. The promise was made today in Damascus. The Syrians say they have already withdrawn 4,000 soldiers from Lebanon in the last several weeks.

And a breakthrough in Iraq today, where the transitional parliament elected a speaker and two deputy speakers. The speaker is Sunni and the deputies are Kurdish and Shi'ia politicians. The vote clears the way for the assembly to name a new president. And then the president can name a prime minister, allowing the rest of the government to be nominated.

And the royal wedding is still on. Prince Charles' office says his wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles will go ahead Friday as planned, even if it clashes with the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

Now so far, the Vatican says the pope's funeral might be any time from Wednesday to Friday. We'll see what happens.

Those are the headlines. Now back to "NEWSNIGHT" and Paula in New York.

ZAHN: Seems no matter what they do, they spur controversy, don't they, Carol?

LIN: You bet.

ZAHN: All right, we're going to get back to our special coverage in just a moment. Pope John Paul, seven journeys to the United States. And the millions of Americans who will always remember, from Rome, Italy to Rome, New York, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

COOPER: Paula, thank you very much. I'm here in Rome with Vatican analyst John Allen. Also Vatican correspondent for the National Capitol Reporter.

We want to talk a little bit about who the next pope may be. Of course, it is really impossible to predict who these cardinals will decide to elect.

JOHN ALLEN, VATICAN ANALYST: Yes. I mean, the trash heaps of history are littered with the carcasses of people who have tried to predict the next pope. And this is hazardous business.

And you know, unlike secular politics, there aren't any polls. We don't know who's up or down. What we can look at are historical patterns and make some educated guesses, but we need to understand that's all these are.

COOPER: And by the way, polls don't really matter much too much in secular politics anyway.

Let's talk about Cardinal Ratzinger.

ALLEN: Yes, Joseph Ratzinger has been, since 1983, the pope's top doctrinal official, kind of the guardian of orthodoxy for the Catholic church. Universally seen as one of the most learned, refined cosmopolitan figures in the College of Cardinals.

If you took a poll of cardinals and asked who do you respect the most, I'm sure Ratzinger would come out somewhere near the top.

COOPER: He was the man really responsible for doctrine and pushing doctrine forward under this pope?

ALLEN: Yes, that's right. And what that means is that he's a somewhat polarizing figure. I mean, people who really stand with a doctrinal positions of this pontificate certainly would be very pro Ratzinger, but there certainly is a wide swath of Catholic opinion that wouldn't share some of those convictions.

COOPER: German born. Let's also - there are also a number of candidates from other parts of the world, Latin America, from Africa, also here in Italy. Who else do you think is a possible frontrunner? ALLEN: Well, I think the Cardinal of Venice, Angelo Scola, who was for a number of the years the rector of the Laterine University here, and also a student of probably the most famous Catholic theologian of the 20th century, Hansur Von Balthazar (ph). Cosmopolitan, speaks many languages, has a great reputation, both as an intellectual and also as an administrator.

Plus, he's an Italian. And as you know, Anderson, some people think that because the pope is also the bishop of Rome, there's sort of a built in benefit of the doubt, so to speak, for the Italian candidates.

COOPER: And there has been some talk of trying to return the papacy to an Italian pope. And the voting block of European cardinals is the largest voting block. Am I correct on that?

ALLEN: Yes. Actually, basically, half of the 117 cardinals who will be casting ballots, are European. But in that number, only 20 are Italian. So it's not like the Italians have a stranglehold in the process.

COOPER: OK, who else? Who else would be a possible frontrunner?

ALLEN: I think the Cardinal Archbishop of Sao Paolo in Brazil, Claudio Hummes. He is a Franciscan. That's a religious order in the Catholic church that follows St. Francis.

And he really lives that spirit. He's a humble man, very open.

COOPER: His parents were German though.

ALLEN: That's exactly right, as many Brazilians were. But precisely because of that, he has a sense of sort of the world. I mean in other words, you know, his imagination is not restricted to his own place of origin. But he's traveled widely, also speaks many languages. A very humble man and somebody that has a reputation as a unifier.

COOPER: Also very important, I mean, being from Latin America, I think Brazil has more Catholics than any other nation on earth, if I....

ALLEN: That's exactly right. And 50 percent of the Catholics in the world today live in Latin America. So this would be a...

COOPER: Fifty percent?

ALLEN: That's right. So this would be a sort of forward looking choice.

In addition, Catholicism in Latin America is facing a very serious threat in the form of the so-called sects. These are very aggressive Pentecostal and evangelical movements that have been cutting into the traditional Catholic population.

So I think some cardinals think a choice like Hummes would also be a shot in the arm for the Latin American church.

COOPER: Who else is a possible frontrunner?

ALLEN: Well, I think another Latin American cardinal would be Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Buenos Aires in Argentina. A deep intellectual man of deep spirituality, also extremely humble. You know, when he became the cardinal in Buenos Aires, one of the first things he did is he sold the limousine that used to ferry the cardinal about. And takes the bus to work.

COOPER: Really?

ALLEN: Yes.

COOPER: That's fascinating. Also, I mean, Argentina has been through some very tough economic times. I understand he's gotten some points for how he behaved during that?

ALLEN: That's right. He didn't speak a lot. But when he spoke, he was listened to in a time when all the other major institutions in Argentinean society sort of were in meltdown. It was the church, and in some ways Bergoglio, who put the society on his shoulders and carried it forward.

COOPER: Anyone else you would...

ALLEN: Yes, I think the Nigerian cardinal, Francis Arinze, who of course has been in Rome since 1984. And this is a guy who would turn the world on with his smile. He has wonderful charm, a wonderful common touch, speaks many languages, and has also seen as somebody who certainly would be very firm on matters of church doctrine, but somebody who would not be seen as oppressive or pessimistic. I mean, he's a great optimist and a great common touch.

COOPER: He's also worked in the Islamic world. I mean...

ALLEN: That's right. And I think many cardinals believe that the church's relationship with Islam is one of the front burner issues in this conclave, will have an awful lot to do with where the world goes. And Arinze is one of the few cardinals who has direct personal experience with Islam.

Of course, as you know in Nigeria, Islam tends to dominate the north, Christianity the south.

COOPER: Right.

ALLEN: And then, here in Rome, he ran the office for Interreligious Dialogue, in which he spent a lot of time and dialogue with global Islam. So he certainly brings a healthy life experience to that issue.

COOPER: You've written a book about the conclave. And I mean, so much of it is sort of shrouded in mystery and secrecy. I mean, take us inside that room, if you can. How much of this is politicking, is kibitzing with one another and sort of forming coalitions? I mean, is that how it's done?

ALLEN: Yes, you know, Anderson, there's a saying in Catholic theology that grace builds upon nature, which means that the fact that God is involved in a process doesn't make it any less human.

And if you applied that to the conclave, what it means is of course the cardinals and Catholics believe this is unfolding under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but it's still a political exercise.

Cardinals have to make decisions about what the issues are, what the right approach to those issues would be, and which man is capable of picking that up.

And so what will happen is in the run-up to the conclave, there's 15 to 20 day period ran right now...

COOPER: Right.

ALLEN: ...cardinals will be meeting with one another in ones and twos and tens and 20s. Usually starting with language groups, and then broadening out from that.

COOPER: So it's already begun really?

ALLEN: Oh, of course it's already begun. And of course, as cardinals continue to arrive in Rome, many of them have not yet gotten there of course, that process will intensify.

But bear in mind, that's all going on behind closed doors. The conclave itself, when they (UNINTELLIGIBLE) under the Sistine Chapel, the events in the conclave are entirely ceremonial. There's no debate and no real conversation inside the Sistine Chapel. The political exercise, so to speak, will go on on the periphery.

COOPER: And it's amazing when you think that of the 117 cardinals who are eligible of this, who are under the age of 80, 114 of them were appointed by John Paul II.

ALLEN: That's right. The only three who weren't, Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal Baum an American and probably the best named cardinal in the college, Cardinal Sin of the Philippines.

COOPER: All right, well, John Allen, thanks very much. Fascinating.

We have a lot more in our special coverage, a two hour special edition of NEWSNIGHT tonight. When we come back, we're going to take a look at John Paul's relationship with the United States. As you know, he visited there seven times. That's more than any other country, except Poland. That was the country he visited the most. We'll take a look at that very special relationship he had with America.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: A deserted St. Peters Square at about 4:30 in the morning Rome time.

We have talked so much over the last 24 hours or so about this pope's ability to connect with the humblest of human beings. And there's an old saying that whoever sings, prays twice. And one musician's prayers were answered way back in 1987. He sang for the pope and he said it changed his whole life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SINGING)

ZAHN: Guitarist Tony Melendez was born without arms, a Thalidomide baby. But his handicap never got in his way.

TONY MELENDEZ, INSPIRED BY THE POPE: When people see a guy with no arms playing the guitar, singing and doing his thing, sharing a little bit about his life, there is that sense of inspiration. Hey, if he could do it, I could maybe do it.

ZAHN: He started playing in high school. His dream, though, was to become a priest. But that was the one thing he couldn't do. Priests need an index finger and thumb to perform their duty of giving communion.

So instead, he did what came naturally, took his voice and his guitar and started playing at church events.

MELENDEZ: I was totally surprised. You know, I really didn't get it. You know, they say you're going to sing a song for the pope. You know, I understand that, but all of a sudden, you're there. The pope's in front of you. There's 6,000 youth, you know, around you.

ZAHN: Melendez was invited to perform for the pope and a crowd of thousands on September 15, 1987. The song he chose to sing was called "Never Be the Same." That title could have been a prophecy.

MELENDEZ: I remember that day, just excited, just nerves of him coming in, the young people. I was sitting like within the audience so I could just almost reach out to them with my foot. So I was in the crowd. The pope was up on the big stage. The pope was looking at me and I just remember him leaning forward. At the end, he stood up and applauded and then jumped into the audience and came over to kiss me.

My heart was going da dum, da dum, da dum. At that moment, I just remember my eyes watering up, a hand reaching up, asking me can you come a little closer. I could tell he wanted to share a kiss and that's when I knelt down and we touched with a kiss.

To me I really feel like I've seen a living saint. That touch has inspired so many people.

ZAHN: Melendez says his life changed forever the day the pope came into his life.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: Tony, Tony, Tony you are truly a courageous young man, courageous young man. You are giving hope to all of us and my wish to you is to continue of giving this hope to all the people.

ZAHN: Words and a message not likely to be forgotten.

MELENDEZ: I just admire him. I'll remember him as kind of that grandfather that everybody loved. I just want to say I love the pope. I miss him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: What a beautiful story and perhaps it will be that the Pope John Paul's greatest legacy was the very personal connection he was able to forge with those folks he came into contact with.

When we come back, two young people whose very different lives were each changed by the pope. Around the world, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The pope was known to have had a special devotion for young people. In fact, the Vatican says that among his last words were messages of thanks for the young people who had come to pray for him in St. Peter's Square as he lay dying. They thought of him as a shepherd, as a moral leader, but also we're told by some, because of his sense of humor they found him attractive and a modern kind of pope for this age. Robin Cammaroto was 19 years old when she met the pope for lunch about three years ago, during an international youth festival in Canada.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBIN CAMMAROTO, MET POPE IN 2002: When I actually did meet him, he was just so full of life and you could see the smile across his face and to meet the 14 youth that were there to have lunch with him, he was just overjoyed and he's just, he's like a grandfather and all of us were saying, it's like eating dinner with grandpa. He joked around with us the whole time.

And there was a girl from China that was at the luncheon with us and when she said she was from China, he was like, oh, they love me there. And there was something different about him compared to anybody else. There was almost a glow from him, just so warm and so inviting and just general love and care from him, that all you wanted to do was just give him a hug and you just get this, this feeling that you are in the room with God himself when you're with him. But at the same time, you get the feeling that you're in the room with a regular ordinary guy, that there's nothing that spectacular about him. But there is.

When I was seven or eight years old and I found out I was born on his birthday, I wanted to send me a birthday card and every year I'd forget. Every year, I'd just over and over forget. Then you tell me I'm going to meet him and I'm like, now's my chance to say, we share a birthday. So we waited the whole lunch and we sang songs and gave him presents. We had such a great time and he's leaving and I was like, I'm going to lose my chance. I got to say it now. And I went, your holiness, I want you to know I was born on your birthday. When you turned 81, I turned 18. And he looked at me and he just smiled and he started to sing happy birthday.

On Friday, when it was leaked that he had supposedly died, I was at work at the time and my friend had called me to tell me and for a good 20, 30 minutes I was in tears and shock and I just couldn't believe it and then, it came out that he wasn't dead. So I went back and I said, well, he's OK. I'm just going to say a prayer that he passes peacefully. So then yesterday when he actually did pass, it was calming, like I was relieved to know that he was in heaven now and there's no doubt in my mind that he's in heaven. And seeing his image on TV made me emotional. Then I realized that the world had lost a great man and I lost what I consider a good friend, even though I only spent two hours with him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And that is what people do say, that even the briefest of brushes with the pope was enough to affect them for all their lives and she's expressing something that's so many people did after the pope died in Vatican Square, when they were waiting and praying for him, trying to give him comfort along his way. When he heard he had finally died, when it was finally announced, there was a feeling of relief. They even burst into applause, not because he had died, but to applaud him, to give one last cheer for one great man. Paula.

ZAHN: Christiane, you were mentioning that they believe that the pope was expressing some sort of thanks to the young people who had gathered to pay their respects to him. I heard an interesting story from a nun last night who said that she traveled with him in the Vatican press corps and she was just amazed to the extent to which she got energy off these young people. It was as though the young people were his fuel.

AMANPOUR: Well, I think that's absolutely the case. He created this world youth day that he very devoted to and would go to as often as he could and he was always addressing himself to the young people. Of course, obviously young people were very energizing for him, but also young people were the future, the future of the church, the future of the world and he really recognized that and any number of them that have seen him and have been touched by him will tell you that.

ZAHN: Thanks Christiane and we're going to add one more story to the young woman's story you just shared with us tonight. It is story of a life changed, touched and redeemed. From southern California, here is Thelma Guittierez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THELMA GUITTIEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nothing was going to stop Alex Diaz from honoring his pope on the day of his death.

ALEX DIAZ, CATHOLIC PARISHIONER: I felt that we love someone special and that people are going to be missing him a lot. GUITTIEREZ: In his wheel chair, Alex traveled several miles from a housing project in east Los Angeles to Our Lady Queen of Angels downtown. As the bells rang, once for every year of Pope John Paul's (INAUDIBLE) the faithful came out to pray. For Alex, it has been faith that has kept him going.

DIAZ: Well, he meant a lot to me because I used to believe in him and I used to like him because the way he is. He was all kind with the whole world you know.

GUITTIEREZ: Five years ago, a tragedy changed Alex forever.

DIAZ: I was the victim of a carjacking because some guys wanted a carjacking, so they shot me in the head. And that's why that left me in a wheelchair.

GUITTIEREZ: The bullet is still lodged in his brain. He wears a hat to hide the scars.

DIAZ: I was really close. The doctor only gave me a 5 percent chance of me living and I was in a coma for four months.

GUITTIEREZ: For those four months, Alex says his family prayed at his bedside. When he came out of the coma, he knew he was a changed man.

DIAZ: It opened up my faith a lot to believe more in God because (INAUDIBLE) I believe in God, but I didn't come to church a lot like I do now.

GUITTIEREZ: Alex says God gave him a second chance at life and he prays for the soul of the man and the messenger that he says brought him this gift. Thelma Guittierez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And what a gift that is. Coming up next, more on the death of the pope. We'll hear from some of the people at St. Peter's Square. You're looking at the very square tonight, 4:42 local time in Rome. This is NEWSNIGHT on a cold night in Rome on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: CNN's special coverage of the death of the pope continues in just a moment. Right now though, we're moving up on about 45 minutes before the hour or that would be 15 minutes before the hour. I just read the clock wrong there. Time to check with Carol Lin who joins us from Atlanta. We've been here a long time today, Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You bet.

ZAHN: I'm not even sure we moved this clock ahead an hour last night.

LIN: I think it's all one long rolling story at this point Paula. In the meantime, I'm going to start overseas as well. Two American troops died in combat in Iraq over the weekend. A soldier was killed today when a roadside bomb exploded about 25 miles north of Baghdad.

And a U.S. Marine died in an explosion yesterday in al-Anbar (ph) province, a hotbed of the insurgency.

Also one person is dead after a man with a sword stormed into a church in Germany. Police say today's attack in Stuttgart left two others seriously injured. Police subdued the man with pepper spray and arrested him. The man's girlfriend was in the church, but was not hurt. She had recently rejected his marriage proposal.

The ousted president of the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan will step down tomorrow. That is according to an official in the country's embassy in Moscow, where the president fled after last month's popular uprising. The one-day revolution was triggered by parliamentary elections that many said were rigged.

And baseball is suspending outfielder Alex Sanchez 10 days for violating its new drug policy. He is the first player publicly identified as breaking those rules. Sanchez said he'll fight the suspension because he's never taken steroids. Tampa Bay signed me after the Detroit Tigers released him last month. And those are the headlines Paula. Now back to you up in New York.

ZAHN: See you in our next hour. Thanks so much Carol. And we're going to go back to Rome where Christiane Amanpour is standing by not far from St. Peter's Square. He bumped out going into last commercial showing, how deserted the place was. I imagine when the sun comes up there in a couple hours, that situation might change.

AMANPOUR: Yes and right now we've seen and we've been reporting, we've shown you the pictures of the little candle shrines that have been put up around St. Peter's Square there, just little ones, haphazardly around, some marking the place where people stood. Others just still standing and praying around their candles. But let's just show you some of what the people were saying when there were many more crowds in St. Peter's today and as they continued their mourning for the pope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's so many people in the Vatican. Yet there's just this calm and this peace that's over each one of everybody in the whole place and it's - people are talking but it's very solemn and quiet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first time I saw him I said something in Polish, not in very good Polish, so at least I got a smile. So anyway...

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And a good memory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good memory too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw this on TV and I saw this look on people's eyes. I said let me go there and see if it's like what it is and now I have that look in my eyes. I feel really, really sad, just - he was the people's pope.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything around you as you approached him went into slow motion, as if you're in a bubble. It was truly a holy moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: That of course was CNN's Bill Hemmer talking to people in St. Peter's Square. Of course, Bill will be back in the morning to continue the coverage and we also will be back after a break with our continuing coverage on the pope and his last days.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: And the mourning for Pope John Paul II goes on, his death a global story for sure, but as we've seen so many ways, it is also intensely local. Another example now from the media side in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN (voice-over): Pope John Paul II was the first pope to fully embrace television and modern media, using it as a tool to reach all corners of the world. This weekend, it seems as if all of the media has, for the final time, focused on this charismatic man.

For Massachusetts residents, this is nothing new. Boston Catholic television first began broadcasting live Sunday masses in 1955. Today, the network is on 24 hours a day and since the Vatican announced the pope's failing health, it has been doing continuous coverage.

JAY FADDEN, GENERAL MANAGER, BCTV: Not only can we show what's going on with the Vatican, what the process is of electing a new holy father, but we can show how Pope John Paul II lived his life.

ZAHN: For its viewers, this story is not only important, but deeply personal.

FATHER ROBERT HERO (ph), ASST DIRECTOR, BCTV: We're very proud to be able to put the pope's life and his legacy on display, because he has meant so much to all of us Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

ZAHN: The dedicated staff here see it's no accident that they've grown, pointing to the fact that the pope himself led the way.

What we're doing here right now with television cameras I think would make the pope very, very happy.

ZAHN: At Boston Catholic television, the hope is that their work is a comfort to viewers during these sad days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you say to the people out there Father, who are a little bit uneasy right now, who are a little bit unsure. What do you tell them?

The day will come when we will have a new pope, a new shepherd and that will usher in a whole new era for the church. As this has been the ending of an era, so in a matter of weeks, we will begin anew and that's the way God's spirit fills up the church all the time with newness. There's always a growth. There's always a movement toward the kingdom and this new pope, whoever he might be, will bring a whole freshness to the church that we cannot imagine right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Our coverage continues. Coming up on the top of the hour, we will take the measure of a mournful day and then look ahead to an eventful week ahead. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: It is 5:00 a.m. in Rome. Welcome to our continuing coverage of the pope, his death, his passing and what happens next, the next chapter in the Catholic Church. Behind me is St. Peter's Square. You can see a live picture. There are almost no mourners there now, just a very few who left candles overnight, but in the day that comes when dawn breaks, they expect thousands more to come pouring in as they have every day since the pope has died and of course, those days while he was dying, as they came to pray, in a global death watch at his bedside in a figurative and metaphorical way.

We're joined tonight of course by Paula Zahn in New York and Anderson Cooper here in Rome and we will be here for the next hour of coverage. But as I say, they are expecting some two million pilgrims to come here over the next several days and those great semi-circular

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired April 3, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It's a privilege to be here in Rome this evening. It has been an extraordinary 24 hour period since the pope's passing Saturday night at 9:37 p.m. in Vatican City.
I want to show you a live picture right now of St. Peters Square, the heart of Vatican City, the heart of St. Peters. You can just see there in the shadow the saints, the apostles of the statues that's in the foreground - in the background, you see just a few people huddled around flames, silently praying, talking with one another, remembering Pope John Paul II. Near those candles both for warmth and lighting a candle in the darkness.

Also want to show you three dark windows, windows we have been watching a lot in these last 48 hours, the windows of the papal apartments. As we hear church bells ringing at this late hour, the papal apartment, the lights have been extinguished, the life of John Paul II extinguished.

Let's listen in.

(BELLS TOLL)

Church bells ringing out across Vatican City. Those three windows, those are the papal apartments where John Paul II died some 24 hours ago. The lights were on for much of last night, as we broadcast from here, symbolizing that there was still life, still activity going on inside those apartments.

But at some point today, the lights went out. The life of John Paul II went out as well.

He lay in state today. We are covering extensively over these next two hours. We're going to be joined from New York by Paula Zahn and also my colleague senior international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, who is also here in Rome with me. We'll be talking with all of them shortly.

But first, we want to talk about what happened today. Today, the people of Rome, the people of the world got to see their pontiff once again. In these last days and weeks and hours of his illness, while he was struggling and in pain, we did not see the pontiff. The last living shot we saw of him was in that balcony window, where he was clearly in pain, clearly suffering, and in his final days.

But in the last few hours, we didn't see him. But today, once again, we saw him. His body, at least, lying in state, his soul departed, his body peaceful, at rest, visited by dignitaries, leaders of the church, and friends of the pontiff.

Of course, these next few days, as he will lie in state in St. Peters Basilica, where some two million people are expected to come and see him once again to pay their respects, to get one last glimpse of the pontiff they have come to love, some two million people expected. It will be an extraordinary several days.

And in these extraordinary days, it will - they will be days draped with tradition and ritual.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The bells of the churches of Rome tolled in unison, telling all who could hear them, the pope had passed away.

(SINGING)

Today, 50,000 of the faithful gathered in St. Peters Square for a mass honoring the holy father, drawn together in their grief, their prayers mixed with tears.

That mass was celebrated by Angelo Cardinal Sodano, former Vatican secretary of state and a possible successor to the papacy, who said of his friend and longtime spiritual adviser, "he died with the serenity of the saints."

And inside the apostolic palace, his home for 26 years, in the very chapel where John Paul II would say his morning prayers, members of his inner circle, the cardinals who were closest to him, his friends and dignitaries, came to pay their respects.

It seems everything that follows the death of a pope is wrapped in ancient ritual. But this was a break from tradition, the first time pictures of the body of a pope were shown to the public via Vatican TV.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: That decision is made by the camerlengo Cardinal Martinez Somalo, who at this point in time during the interregnum, when there is no pope, makes most of those administrative decisions. So it shows a great openness on his part towards the media.

COOPER: He lay, stretched out on a simple slab made of marble, a wooden crucifix at his head, his bishop staff tucked under his arm.

GALLAGHER: The pope in the first instance is a bishop. He's a bishop of Rome. And a bishop in the Catholic church is one of the most important positions. And the staff represents the staff, much as a shepherd of his flock carries a staff. So the pope and any bishop carries the staff during ceremonies.

COOPER: And he's dressed in bright crimson and white robes, the colors of the papacy, wearing a white miter on his head.

As in every ritual, each gesture, every nuance has a deeper meaning. GALLAGHER: Well, the white is purity. And the red is for the flames, for fire, which cleanses. So those are traditional garments in the church that are used at various times during the liturgical year.

COOPER: The pope was declared dead last night by a doctor. But then, according to custom, the camerlengo or chamberlain called out his Christian name, Karol, three times, then pronounced that the pope had died.

His body was embalmed, but there is another tradition that may or may not have been followed.

GALLAGHER: Sometimes the organs are removed if they want to be placed in another place, other than in the tomb under St. Peters.

COOPER: The pope's body may have been taken to the Sistine Chapel last night, but it was moved this morning to the apostolic palace, where he was blessed with holy water as mourners gathered to pray and say good-bye.

GALLAGHER: Yes, that's the final blessing of the pope, provided by the camerlengo, who is in charge during this time when there is no pope. And it's the last blessing. The pope, of course, must be blessed. And so he's blessed by those cardinals around him as a final send off.

COOPER: Tomorrow, more ritual rules the mourning of John Paul II. His body will be moved to St. Peters Basilica, where more than two million people are expected to see him lying in state, a chance for the faithful to say a final farewell to the man they called "father."

The day of the funeral has not been set, but if tradition holds, the pope will join half his predecessors who are laid to rest in the grotto beneath the basilica, entombed forever under that magnificent house of worship and held forever in the hearts of those who mourn his passing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And of course, it has been a very emotional time right here in Rome and in Vatican City. CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour has been monitoring reaction here in Rome, and also around the world - Christiane?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR. CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We are, if you like, at street level. The basilica, that one can see behind you, is also just down here behind where this huge broad boulevard will be jammed packed with pilgrims who come over the next several days to get a chance to go around the lying in state when his body is actually placed in public on public view in St. Peters Basilica.

And then, of course, they will all want to be here for the funeral. And we're still awaiting that and those details. And that is going to start, we understand, in a few hours when the congregation of cardinals start their meetings at 9:00 a.m., that's in about five hours from now, on Monday morning, to actually lay out formally the sequence of events for what happens over the next few days.

And in the meantime, while all these pilgrims are preparing to come here, people are already sending their condolences, obviously, remembering the pope, not just here, but all over the world.

Well, we were going to show you a report of people all over the world, who had been so touched by Pope John Paul II, from South Africa, to the rest of the African continent, Latin America, where the church is growing quite rapidly, all over Europe, and even to places such as the former Soviet Union, which he works so hard to try to bring down communism.

The former Soviet leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev, his successor, the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, have expressed their condolences. And so, too, have leaders in countries which don't have large Christian populations, which are, for instance, entirely Muslim, such as Indonesia, such as Pakistan, which the pope also visited. We have that report now. And here are some good-byes from around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Wherever you look, the scenes are the same - prayers and music in South Africa and in Nagasaki, Japan.

(SINGING)

Reminders that the pope was a global figure. And his death has become a global event. There are tears in the Philippines and in Africa's Ivory Coast. Candles at Notre Dame in Paris and in Phuket, Thailand.

An estimated 100,000 people turned out for a service in Warsaw, Poland, the pope's homeland.

Bells rang out in Puerto Rico. Mariachi music played in Mexico. World leaders are paying tribute as well.

TONY BLAIR, PRIME MINISTER, U.K.: What people could see in Pope John Paul was a man of true and profound spiritual faith, a shining example of what that faith should mean.

AMANPOUR: There were expressions of sorrow from Israel's government, from Palestinian leaders, from Christian churches like this one in Nazareth, and even from the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which took note of the pope's statement on Palestinian rights.

There were reactions from places you might not expect. Cuba, where the pope paid a visit in 1998, declared three days of mourning. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has strained relations with the Vatican wrote, "May his memory live forever."

The man who tried to kill the pope nearly a quarter century ago, Mehmet Ali Agca (ph), is said by his brother to be extremely saddened, in grief.

In his years as pope, John Paul II traveled the distance equal to that of the earth to the moon, three times. He made 104 trips outside of Italy and saw more than 120 countries.

Millions saw him over the years. Today, in all their diversity, the people of the world remembered. And they said thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And as we've said, they will come and go around and pray around the body of Pope John Paul when it is laid in state later today, Monday, in St. Peters Basilica.

And already the cardinal - Secretary of State of the Vatican - Cardinal Angelo Sodano has caused some ripples here. A lot is being made of what he wrote about the pope in his text today of the homily. He calls him Pope John Paul the Great, implying that perhaps he would be made a saint because only two popes in the past have been called great. And they were many, many centuries ago in the Dark Ages.

So a lot is being made of that, which he actually wrote, but didn't utter during a homily today - Paula?

ZAHN: And Christiane, a lot of superlatives being thrown out around here in the United States. There was a poll that was conducted by CNN/USA TODAY, a poll among American Catholics, showing that two- thirds of them believe that Pope John Paul II is the greatest pope ever.

When Raymond Flynn left his job as mayor of Boston, President Bill Clinton appointed him America's ambassador to the Vatican. Now while he served in that role for just four years, Ambassador Flynn knew the pope for decades.

And tonight, he reflects on a man who is much loved in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAYMOND FLYNN, FORMER BOSTON MAYOR: I first met him in September of 1969, when he came here as Father Wojtyla from Krakow, Archbishop of Krakow at the time.

He came to the Polish community, developed a lot of friends. I'll never forget the night that he became pope, where spontaneously, you know, people heard the news breaking out of the Vatican that a Pole had been elected pope. And they didn't know quite what to do.

So everybody went down to the church, down here at Lady of Chester Church, it's the church where I was born - brought up in, and just to see this scene of Polish-American people from all over Massachusetts, coming into celebrate and rejoice.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: I want to tell everyone that the pope is your friend.

(APPLAUSE)

FLYNN: And then of course, October 1, 1979, when they had that famous mass at the Boston Common. Boston's had a special place for John Paul II for many, many years. This man is not just my spiritual leader, but he's a personal friend.

I will have an extraordinary difficult time trying to replace him in my heart, because he has been such an important piece of my life, an important part of my family.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Ray Flynn with some intensely personal reflections of a man he came to know and love.

When we come back, what might have been the story of the moment, the wedding of Camilla and Charles. Yes, it will happen as scheduled on Friday. That and much more from Rome, as our special report continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: And in a moment, who could be the next pope? A lot of speculation about that. We're going to go over some of the possibilities for you a little bit later tonight.

But first, at about 17 minutes past the hour, a look at some of the other stories making news tonight. Carol Lin is standing by in Atlanta.

Hi, Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, Paula. We've got some news out of Washington state right now. An Amtrak train derailed today in the Colombia River gorge. Up to a dozen passengers were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The rest of the 115 people on board were taken to a shelter. All four cars of the Empire Builder derailed, but remained upright leaning against an embankment.

Syria's president tells a U.N. envoy he will complete his troop withdrawal from Lebanon by the end of the month. The promise was made today in Damascus. The Syrians say they have already withdrawn 4,000 soldiers from Lebanon in the last several weeks.

And a breakthrough in Iraq today, where the transitional parliament elected a speaker and two deputy speakers. The speaker is Sunni and the deputies are Kurdish and Shi'ia politicians. The vote clears the way for the assembly to name a new president. And then the president can name a prime minister, allowing the rest of the government to be nominated.

And the royal wedding is still on. Prince Charles' office says his wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles will go ahead Friday as planned, even if it clashes with the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

Now so far, the Vatican says the pope's funeral might be any time from Wednesday to Friday. We'll see what happens.

Those are the headlines. Now back to "NEWSNIGHT" and Paula in New York.

ZAHN: Seems no matter what they do, they spur controversy, don't they, Carol?

LIN: You bet.

ZAHN: All right, we're going to get back to our special coverage in just a moment. Pope John Paul, seven journeys to the United States. And the millions of Americans who will always remember, from Rome, Italy to Rome, New York, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

COOPER: Paula, thank you very much. I'm here in Rome with Vatican analyst John Allen. Also Vatican correspondent for the National Capitol Reporter.

We want to talk a little bit about who the next pope may be. Of course, it is really impossible to predict who these cardinals will decide to elect.

JOHN ALLEN, VATICAN ANALYST: Yes. I mean, the trash heaps of history are littered with the carcasses of people who have tried to predict the next pope. And this is hazardous business.

And you know, unlike secular politics, there aren't any polls. We don't know who's up or down. What we can look at are historical patterns and make some educated guesses, but we need to understand that's all these are.

COOPER: And by the way, polls don't really matter much too much in secular politics anyway.

Let's talk about Cardinal Ratzinger.

ALLEN: Yes, Joseph Ratzinger has been, since 1983, the pope's top doctrinal official, kind of the guardian of orthodoxy for the Catholic church. Universally seen as one of the most learned, refined cosmopolitan figures in the College of Cardinals.

If you took a poll of cardinals and asked who do you respect the most, I'm sure Ratzinger would come out somewhere near the top.

COOPER: He was the man really responsible for doctrine and pushing doctrine forward under this pope?

ALLEN: Yes, that's right. And what that means is that he's a somewhat polarizing figure. I mean, people who really stand with a doctrinal positions of this pontificate certainly would be very pro Ratzinger, but there certainly is a wide swath of Catholic opinion that wouldn't share some of those convictions.

COOPER: German born. Let's also - there are also a number of candidates from other parts of the world, Latin America, from Africa, also here in Italy. Who else do you think is a possible frontrunner? ALLEN: Well, I think the Cardinal of Venice, Angelo Scola, who was for a number of the years the rector of the Laterine University here, and also a student of probably the most famous Catholic theologian of the 20th century, Hansur Von Balthazar (ph). Cosmopolitan, speaks many languages, has a great reputation, both as an intellectual and also as an administrator.

Plus, he's an Italian. And as you know, Anderson, some people think that because the pope is also the bishop of Rome, there's sort of a built in benefit of the doubt, so to speak, for the Italian candidates.

COOPER: And there has been some talk of trying to return the papacy to an Italian pope. And the voting block of European cardinals is the largest voting block. Am I correct on that?

ALLEN: Yes. Actually, basically, half of the 117 cardinals who will be casting ballots, are European. But in that number, only 20 are Italian. So it's not like the Italians have a stranglehold in the process.

COOPER: OK, who else? Who else would be a possible frontrunner?

ALLEN: I think the Cardinal Archbishop of Sao Paolo in Brazil, Claudio Hummes. He is a Franciscan. That's a religious order in the Catholic church that follows St. Francis.

And he really lives that spirit. He's a humble man, very open.

COOPER: His parents were German though.

ALLEN: That's exactly right, as many Brazilians were. But precisely because of that, he has a sense of sort of the world. I mean in other words, you know, his imagination is not restricted to his own place of origin. But he's traveled widely, also speaks many languages. A very humble man and somebody that has a reputation as a unifier.

COOPER: Also very important, I mean, being from Latin America, I think Brazil has more Catholics than any other nation on earth, if I....

ALLEN: That's exactly right. And 50 percent of the Catholics in the world today live in Latin America. So this would be a...

COOPER: Fifty percent?

ALLEN: That's right. So this would be a sort of forward looking choice.

In addition, Catholicism in Latin America is facing a very serious threat in the form of the so-called sects. These are very aggressive Pentecostal and evangelical movements that have been cutting into the traditional Catholic population.

So I think some cardinals think a choice like Hummes would also be a shot in the arm for the Latin American church.

COOPER: Who else is a possible frontrunner?

ALLEN: Well, I think another Latin American cardinal would be Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Buenos Aires in Argentina. A deep intellectual man of deep spirituality, also extremely humble. You know, when he became the cardinal in Buenos Aires, one of the first things he did is he sold the limousine that used to ferry the cardinal about. And takes the bus to work.

COOPER: Really?

ALLEN: Yes.

COOPER: That's fascinating. Also, I mean, Argentina has been through some very tough economic times. I understand he's gotten some points for how he behaved during that?

ALLEN: That's right. He didn't speak a lot. But when he spoke, he was listened to in a time when all the other major institutions in Argentinean society sort of were in meltdown. It was the church, and in some ways Bergoglio, who put the society on his shoulders and carried it forward.

COOPER: Anyone else you would...

ALLEN: Yes, I think the Nigerian cardinal, Francis Arinze, who of course has been in Rome since 1984. And this is a guy who would turn the world on with his smile. He has wonderful charm, a wonderful common touch, speaks many languages, and has also seen as somebody who certainly would be very firm on matters of church doctrine, but somebody who would not be seen as oppressive or pessimistic. I mean, he's a great optimist and a great common touch.

COOPER: He's also worked in the Islamic world. I mean...

ALLEN: That's right. And I think many cardinals believe that the church's relationship with Islam is one of the front burner issues in this conclave, will have an awful lot to do with where the world goes. And Arinze is one of the few cardinals who has direct personal experience with Islam.

Of course, as you know in Nigeria, Islam tends to dominate the north, Christianity the south.

COOPER: Right.

ALLEN: And then, here in Rome, he ran the office for Interreligious Dialogue, in which he spent a lot of time and dialogue with global Islam. So he certainly brings a healthy life experience to that issue.

COOPER: You've written a book about the conclave. And I mean, so much of it is sort of shrouded in mystery and secrecy. I mean, take us inside that room, if you can. How much of this is politicking, is kibitzing with one another and sort of forming coalitions? I mean, is that how it's done?

ALLEN: Yes, you know, Anderson, there's a saying in Catholic theology that grace builds upon nature, which means that the fact that God is involved in a process doesn't make it any less human.

And if you applied that to the conclave, what it means is of course the cardinals and Catholics believe this is unfolding under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but it's still a political exercise.

Cardinals have to make decisions about what the issues are, what the right approach to those issues would be, and which man is capable of picking that up.

And so what will happen is in the run-up to the conclave, there's 15 to 20 day period ran right now...

COOPER: Right.

ALLEN: ...cardinals will be meeting with one another in ones and twos and tens and 20s. Usually starting with language groups, and then broadening out from that.

COOPER: So it's already begun really?

ALLEN: Oh, of course it's already begun. And of course, as cardinals continue to arrive in Rome, many of them have not yet gotten there of course, that process will intensify.

But bear in mind, that's all going on behind closed doors. The conclave itself, when they (UNINTELLIGIBLE) under the Sistine Chapel, the events in the conclave are entirely ceremonial. There's no debate and no real conversation inside the Sistine Chapel. The political exercise, so to speak, will go on on the periphery.

COOPER: And it's amazing when you think that of the 117 cardinals who are eligible of this, who are under the age of 80, 114 of them were appointed by John Paul II.

ALLEN: That's right. The only three who weren't, Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal Baum an American and probably the best named cardinal in the college, Cardinal Sin of the Philippines.

COOPER: All right, well, John Allen, thanks very much. Fascinating.

We have a lot more in our special coverage, a two hour special edition of NEWSNIGHT tonight. When we come back, we're going to take a look at John Paul's relationship with the United States. As you know, he visited there seven times. That's more than any other country, except Poland. That was the country he visited the most. We'll take a look at that very special relationship he had with America.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: A deserted St. Peters Square at about 4:30 in the morning Rome time.

We have talked so much over the last 24 hours or so about this pope's ability to connect with the humblest of human beings. And there's an old saying that whoever sings, prays twice. And one musician's prayers were answered way back in 1987. He sang for the pope and he said it changed his whole life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SINGING)

ZAHN: Guitarist Tony Melendez was born without arms, a Thalidomide baby. But his handicap never got in his way.

TONY MELENDEZ, INSPIRED BY THE POPE: When people see a guy with no arms playing the guitar, singing and doing his thing, sharing a little bit about his life, there is that sense of inspiration. Hey, if he could do it, I could maybe do it.

ZAHN: He started playing in high school. His dream, though, was to become a priest. But that was the one thing he couldn't do. Priests need an index finger and thumb to perform their duty of giving communion.

So instead, he did what came naturally, took his voice and his guitar and started playing at church events.

MELENDEZ: I was totally surprised. You know, I really didn't get it. You know, they say you're going to sing a song for the pope. You know, I understand that, but all of a sudden, you're there. The pope's in front of you. There's 6,000 youth, you know, around you.

ZAHN: Melendez was invited to perform for the pope and a crowd of thousands on September 15, 1987. The song he chose to sing was called "Never Be the Same." That title could have been a prophecy.

MELENDEZ: I remember that day, just excited, just nerves of him coming in, the young people. I was sitting like within the audience so I could just almost reach out to them with my foot. So I was in the crowd. The pope was up on the big stage. The pope was looking at me and I just remember him leaning forward. At the end, he stood up and applauded and then jumped into the audience and came over to kiss me.

My heart was going da dum, da dum, da dum. At that moment, I just remember my eyes watering up, a hand reaching up, asking me can you come a little closer. I could tell he wanted to share a kiss and that's when I knelt down and we touched with a kiss.

To me I really feel like I've seen a living saint. That touch has inspired so many people.

ZAHN: Melendez says his life changed forever the day the pope came into his life.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: Tony, Tony, Tony you are truly a courageous young man, courageous young man. You are giving hope to all of us and my wish to you is to continue of giving this hope to all the people.

ZAHN: Words and a message not likely to be forgotten.

MELENDEZ: I just admire him. I'll remember him as kind of that grandfather that everybody loved. I just want to say I love the pope. I miss him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: What a beautiful story and perhaps it will be that the Pope John Paul's greatest legacy was the very personal connection he was able to forge with those folks he came into contact with.

When we come back, two young people whose very different lives were each changed by the pope. Around the world, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The pope was known to have had a special devotion for young people. In fact, the Vatican says that among his last words were messages of thanks for the young people who had come to pray for him in St. Peter's Square as he lay dying. They thought of him as a shepherd, as a moral leader, but also we're told by some, because of his sense of humor they found him attractive and a modern kind of pope for this age. Robin Cammaroto was 19 years old when she met the pope for lunch about three years ago, during an international youth festival in Canada.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBIN CAMMAROTO, MET POPE IN 2002: When I actually did meet him, he was just so full of life and you could see the smile across his face and to meet the 14 youth that were there to have lunch with him, he was just overjoyed and he's just, he's like a grandfather and all of us were saying, it's like eating dinner with grandpa. He joked around with us the whole time.

And there was a girl from China that was at the luncheon with us and when she said she was from China, he was like, oh, they love me there. And there was something different about him compared to anybody else. There was almost a glow from him, just so warm and so inviting and just general love and care from him, that all you wanted to do was just give him a hug and you just get this, this feeling that you are in the room with God himself when you're with him. But at the same time, you get the feeling that you're in the room with a regular ordinary guy, that there's nothing that spectacular about him. But there is.

When I was seven or eight years old and I found out I was born on his birthday, I wanted to send me a birthday card and every year I'd forget. Every year, I'd just over and over forget. Then you tell me I'm going to meet him and I'm like, now's my chance to say, we share a birthday. So we waited the whole lunch and we sang songs and gave him presents. We had such a great time and he's leaving and I was like, I'm going to lose my chance. I got to say it now. And I went, your holiness, I want you to know I was born on your birthday. When you turned 81, I turned 18. And he looked at me and he just smiled and he started to sing happy birthday.

On Friday, when it was leaked that he had supposedly died, I was at work at the time and my friend had called me to tell me and for a good 20, 30 minutes I was in tears and shock and I just couldn't believe it and then, it came out that he wasn't dead. So I went back and I said, well, he's OK. I'm just going to say a prayer that he passes peacefully. So then yesterday when he actually did pass, it was calming, like I was relieved to know that he was in heaven now and there's no doubt in my mind that he's in heaven. And seeing his image on TV made me emotional. Then I realized that the world had lost a great man and I lost what I consider a good friend, even though I only spent two hours with him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And that is what people do say, that even the briefest of brushes with the pope was enough to affect them for all their lives and she's expressing something that's so many people did after the pope died in Vatican Square, when they were waiting and praying for him, trying to give him comfort along his way. When he heard he had finally died, when it was finally announced, there was a feeling of relief. They even burst into applause, not because he had died, but to applaud him, to give one last cheer for one great man. Paula.

ZAHN: Christiane, you were mentioning that they believe that the pope was expressing some sort of thanks to the young people who had gathered to pay their respects to him. I heard an interesting story from a nun last night who said that she traveled with him in the Vatican press corps and she was just amazed to the extent to which she got energy off these young people. It was as though the young people were his fuel.

AMANPOUR: Well, I think that's absolutely the case. He created this world youth day that he very devoted to and would go to as often as he could and he was always addressing himself to the young people. Of course, obviously young people were very energizing for him, but also young people were the future, the future of the church, the future of the world and he really recognized that and any number of them that have seen him and have been touched by him will tell you that.

ZAHN: Thanks Christiane and we're going to add one more story to the young woman's story you just shared with us tonight. It is story of a life changed, touched and redeemed. From southern California, here is Thelma Guittierez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THELMA GUITTIEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nothing was going to stop Alex Diaz from honoring his pope on the day of his death.

ALEX DIAZ, CATHOLIC PARISHIONER: I felt that we love someone special and that people are going to be missing him a lot. GUITTIEREZ: In his wheel chair, Alex traveled several miles from a housing project in east Los Angeles to Our Lady Queen of Angels downtown. As the bells rang, once for every year of Pope John Paul's (INAUDIBLE) the faithful came out to pray. For Alex, it has been faith that has kept him going.

DIAZ: Well, he meant a lot to me because I used to believe in him and I used to like him because the way he is. He was all kind with the whole world you know.

GUITTIEREZ: Five years ago, a tragedy changed Alex forever.

DIAZ: I was the victim of a carjacking because some guys wanted a carjacking, so they shot me in the head. And that's why that left me in a wheelchair.

GUITTIEREZ: The bullet is still lodged in his brain. He wears a hat to hide the scars.

DIAZ: I was really close. The doctor only gave me a 5 percent chance of me living and I was in a coma for four months.

GUITTIEREZ: For those four months, Alex says his family prayed at his bedside. When he came out of the coma, he knew he was a changed man.

DIAZ: It opened up my faith a lot to believe more in God because (INAUDIBLE) I believe in God, but I didn't come to church a lot like I do now.

GUITTIEREZ: Alex says God gave him a second chance at life and he prays for the soul of the man and the messenger that he says brought him this gift. Thelma Guittierez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And what a gift that is. Coming up next, more on the death of the pope. We'll hear from some of the people at St. Peter's Square. You're looking at the very square tonight, 4:42 local time in Rome. This is NEWSNIGHT on a cold night in Rome on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: CNN's special coverage of the death of the pope continues in just a moment. Right now though, we're moving up on about 45 minutes before the hour or that would be 15 minutes before the hour. I just read the clock wrong there. Time to check with Carol Lin who joins us from Atlanta. We've been here a long time today, Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You bet.

ZAHN: I'm not even sure we moved this clock ahead an hour last night.

LIN: I think it's all one long rolling story at this point Paula. In the meantime, I'm going to start overseas as well. Two American troops died in combat in Iraq over the weekend. A soldier was killed today when a roadside bomb exploded about 25 miles north of Baghdad.

And a U.S. Marine died in an explosion yesterday in al-Anbar (ph) province, a hotbed of the insurgency.

Also one person is dead after a man with a sword stormed into a church in Germany. Police say today's attack in Stuttgart left two others seriously injured. Police subdued the man with pepper spray and arrested him. The man's girlfriend was in the church, but was not hurt. She had recently rejected his marriage proposal.

The ousted president of the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan will step down tomorrow. That is according to an official in the country's embassy in Moscow, where the president fled after last month's popular uprising. The one-day revolution was triggered by parliamentary elections that many said were rigged.

And baseball is suspending outfielder Alex Sanchez 10 days for violating its new drug policy. He is the first player publicly identified as breaking those rules. Sanchez said he'll fight the suspension because he's never taken steroids. Tampa Bay signed me after the Detroit Tigers released him last month. And those are the headlines Paula. Now back to you up in New York.

ZAHN: See you in our next hour. Thanks so much Carol. And we're going to go back to Rome where Christiane Amanpour is standing by not far from St. Peter's Square. He bumped out going into last commercial showing, how deserted the place was. I imagine when the sun comes up there in a couple hours, that situation might change.

AMANPOUR: Yes and right now we've seen and we've been reporting, we've shown you the pictures of the little candle shrines that have been put up around St. Peter's Square there, just little ones, haphazardly around, some marking the place where people stood. Others just still standing and praying around their candles. But let's just show you some of what the people were saying when there were many more crowds in St. Peter's today and as they continued their mourning for the pope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's so many people in the Vatican. Yet there's just this calm and this peace that's over each one of everybody in the whole place and it's - people are talking but it's very solemn and quiet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first time I saw him I said something in Polish, not in very good Polish, so at least I got a smile. So anyway...

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And a good memory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good memory too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw this on TV and I saw this look on people's eyes. I said let me go there and see if it's like what it is and now I have that look in my eyes. I feel really, really sad, just - he was the people's pope.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything around you as you approached him went into slow motion, as if you're in a bubble. It was truly a holy moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: That of course was CNN's Bill Hemmer talking to people in St. Peter's Square. Of course, Bill will be back in the morning to continue the coverage and we also will be back after a break with our continuing coverage on the pope and his last days.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: And the mourning for Pope John Paul II goes on, his death a global story for sure, but as we've seen so many ways, it is also intensely local. Another example now from the media side in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN (voice-over): Pope John Paul II was the first pope to fully embrace television and modern media, using it as a tool to reach all corners of the world. This weekend, it seems as if all of the media has, for the final time, focused on this charismatic man.

For Massachusetts residents, this is nothing new. Boston Catholic television first began broadcasting live Sunday masses in 1955. Today, the network is on 24 hours a day and since the Vatican announced the pope's failing health, it has been doing continuous coverage.

JAY FADDEN, GENERAL MANAGER, BCTV: Not only can we show what's going on with the Vatican, what the process is of electing a new holy father, but we can show how Pope John Paul II lived his life.

ZAHN: For its viewers, this story is not only important, but deeply personal.

FATHER ROBERT HERO (ph), ASST DIRECTOR, BCTV: We're very proud to be able to put the pope's life and his legacy on display, because he has meant so much to all of us Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

ZAHN: The dedicated staff here see it's no accident that they've grown, pointing to the fact that the pope himself led the way.

What we're doing here right now with television cameras I think would make the pope very, very happy.

ZAHN: At Boston Catholic television, the hope is that their work is a comfort to viewers during these sad days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you say to the people out there Father, who are a little bit uneasy right now, who are a little bit unsure. What do you tell them?

The day will come when we will have a new pope, a new shepherd and that will usher in a whole new era for the church. As this has been the ending of an era, so in a matter of weeks, we will begin anew and that's the way God's spirit fills up the church all the time with newness. There's always a growth. There's always a movement toward the kingdom and this new pope, whoever he might be, will bring a whole freshness to the church that we cannot imagine right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Our coverage continues. Coming up on the top of the hour, we will take the measure of a mournful day and then look ahead to an eventful week ahead. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: It is 5:00 a.m. in Rome. Welcome to our continuing coverage of the pope, his death, his passing and what happens next, the next chapter in the Catholic Church. Behind me is St. Peter's Square. You can see a live picture. There are almost no mourners there now, just a very few who left candles overnight, but in the day that comes when dawn breaks, they expect thousands more to come pouring in as they have every day since the pope has died and of course, those days while he was dying, as they came to pray, in a global death watch at his bedside in a figurative and metaphorical way.

We're joined tonight of course by Paula Zahn in New York and Anderson Cooper here in Rome and we will be here for the next hour of coverage. But as I say, they are expecting some two million pilgrims to come here over the next several days and those great semi-circular

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com