Elaborate set of rituals will mark burial

VATICAN CITY -- Tomorrow morning, when pallbearers lay John Paul II to rest beneath the great basilica of St. Peter's, he will be sealed in his coffin with a small set of items dictated by history and Vatican protocol: His red vestments. A lead pipe containing a personal biography. A bag of coins.

The pope's burial marks the final step in an elaborate set of funeral rites that began earlier this week, when a service was conducted for the pope as he lay inside the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. It will conclude tomorrow when his three-layered coffin is slowly lowered into the burial niche that once housed Pope John XXIII.

Between those two moments, the Vatican follows a careful script set out in the Ordo Exsequiarium Romani Pontificis, a 437-page manual written in Italian and Latin. Revised by John Paul II, it was publicly released only this week.

The manual dictates three key ''stations": a Mass should be said over the pope when initially laid on his bier, then a grand funeral Mass in St. Peter's Square, and a final commendation and farewell before a small group of people at the tomb.

The centerpiece is tomorrow's funeral Mass -- which, though attended by dignitaries and probably watched by millions of people on huge video screens, will be structurally familiar to many churchgoers.

''The ritual being used is the ritual used for every Catholic who is buried today," said Monsignor Anthony F. Sherman, the associate director of liturgy for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Like any Mass, the funeral will include biblical readings and Communion, in addition to what Sherman called the ''bookends" of a funeral service: the receiving of the body at the beginning, and the concluding rites as the body is commended to God.

One key difference, besides the security and the crowds: It will be far longer, with estimates running about three hours. The Mass involves sung antiphons, periods of silence for public prayer, and some passages repeated in Spanish, English, Polish, Portuguese, Swahili, and other languages. It also includes the stately movement of the pope's coffin.

The job of overseeing the services falls to the papal master of ceremonies, an affable Italian monsignor named Piero Marini, who earlier this week explained exactly how John Paul's burial and the conclave would unfold.

The papal vacancy is ''not just a period of time, but a series of rites," Marini said at a news conference.

The funeral will begin once the public viewing of the pope's body has ended. The body will be placed in a casket of cypress wood, and Marini together with the pope's personal secretary will draw a white veil over the pope's face. They will read passages from his personal biography, place the document in a lead pipe, affix the official seal of the Office of Liturgical Celebrations, and lay it at the pope's feet. Then the casket will be closed.

The pope's body will not be visible during the funeral, which begins tomorrow at 10 a.m. local time.

The Mass will be celebrated by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of the College of Cardinals, who served as a doctrinal enforcer during John Paul II's papacy. Immediately after the Mass ends, the coffin will be conveyed into the basilica and taken to the downstairs grotto -- the location of the tomb of St. Peter, as well as 146 other popes and several Catholic monarchs. The coffin will be closed with red ribbons and sealed, then set into a larger coffin of zinc, then both into another coffin of walnut wood.

It will all be laid to rest in bare earth, in accordance with the pope's wishes. When sealed, the tomb will be marked by a simple marble plaque inscribed with his name -- its modesty in sharp contrast to the intricate, colorful ritual just concluded.

Churches in the United States and around the world also are celebrating a Mass for the Dead, including special prayers for the purpose of commemorating a dead pope. American churches are being urged to celebrate it tomorrow, although some already have said the Mass.

Then, after the pope is buried, the Church marks nine days of official mourning -- a period called the Novemdiales, which again includes a special Mass prescribed in the protocol documents.

Although the papal burial has a deep patina of tradition and history, its particulars have changed from pope to pope. According to a Vatican announcement, John Paul II's funeral will be celebrated in the piazza in front of the basilica. Before Paul VI died in 1978, most Masses were said inside. (At the outdoor Mass for John Paul I, who died a month after he became pope, the congregation became drenched with rain.) And the components of the Mass itself are not fixed.

''We didn't know at all what the readings were going to be," said Sherman, interviewed by phone yesterday from his office in Washington, D.C. ''We found out exactly what the whole thing was when it went on the Web this afternoon."

Some details were apparently being worked out only this week. On Tuesday, Marini was asked what kind of coins would be placed in the small change purse buried with the pontiff. Tradition holds that some be of silver and some be of bronze.

''It's difficult, with the euro and the lira," Marini said. ''We'll probably just use medallions."