As a prelate's life slips away, centuries-old rituals begin

VATICAN CITY -- The passing of a pope, an event wrapped in centuries of history and tradition, has set into motion a chain of events that will culminate in a few weeks with the naming of the next pontiff.

Last night, the people of Rome had waited for church bells throughout the city to ring, traditionally the signal that the pope has died. In previous centuries, the camerlengo, a cardinal, would strike the pope's forehead three times with a silver hammer to verify death. Shutters were drawn, and a bronze door in St. Peter's Square was closed when the pope died and reopened only when a new pope is elected.

Although the tradition of the bronze door has been observed irregularly in modern times -- in fact, the door is always closed at night -- and the silver hammer was mothballed long ago, the three- or four-week period between the end of one papacy and the birth of a new one is still among the most carefully choreographed and intensely scrutinized transitions in the modern world.

For John Paul II, the routine all began in the moment when medical uncertainties were finally over and the camerlengo performed his gravest duty, according to the protocol approved by the pope. He was charged with calling out the pope's given name three times: Karol, Karol, Karol.

''In this day and age, of course, it's going to be a medical expert who determines the pope's death, and not [the camerlengo]," said the Rev. Harvey Egan, a professor of theology at Boston College and a Jesuit priest.

But if official protocol was followed -- and the short bulletin provided by the Vatican implied that it was -- the ceremony should have happened like this: After the camerlengo had called the pope's name, a select group of Vatican officials verified the death. Then, the camerlengo approached the pope's body, removed his ring, and destroyed the seal it bore, a practice dating from the days when a papal seal could be dangerously misused once it was no longer in the pope's control.

The pope's death was then formally communicated through the Vatican hierarchy, from the papal head of household to the dean of the College of Cardinals, and from the camerlengo to the vicar of Rome. The careful observation of such symbolic gestures is more than purely ceremonial, say church specialists. Rather, it offers a powerful sense of continuity, even as cardinals are mustering behind the scenes to lay the groundwork for a new papacy and the inevitable changes it will bring.

The first change happened immediately: Once the pope died, the government of the Vatican was transformed. The heads of nearly all its departments were automatically removed from their jobs. Until the next pope is elected, a group of cardinals will meet to carry out the necessary business of the church.

Meanwhile, the Vatican will observe a formal nine-day mourning period for the pope, and within 15 to 20 days the College of Cardinals will gather from around the world for its conclave, the secretive gathering in the Sistine Chapel in which a new pope is elected and the decision expressed in the most famous symbol of all: a plume of black smoke for an indecisive ballot, and white smoke to signal a new pope.

None of these traditions is immutable, according to specialists on church practices. The broad outlines of the current ritual are about 1,000 years old, but John Paul himself changed some of the voting rules for the conclave.

The pope's long period of infirmity created its own sense of symbolism that found reflection in the rituals of the church. At Friday night's Mass in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the chief church of popes for centuries before St. Peter's Basilica was built and still the cathedral of Rome, the Mass was said by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the vicar of Rome and the pope's stand-in as head of the Diocese of Rome.

For the crowd standing thick on a marble floor intricately inlaid with papal insignia, beneath the vast basilica's high ceiling marked with gilded papal keys, it was hard to miss the connection as the cardinal held up the eucharistic wafer and intoned, in Italian, the traditional words of the Mass: ''This is my body, offered in sacrifice for you."

Though the words were those of Jesus at the Last Supper, the parallel to Pope John Paul II, whose long infirmity came to symbolize the spiritual power of human suffering, could not have escaped many who came to the church.

''We are symbolic animals," said Egan, the BC professor. ''There's no doubt about that."