VATICAN CITY — About 4 million people, including a last-minute contingent from Poland, converged around the world's tiniest state as the humble and the mighty joined for today's burial of Pope John Paul II.
Pilgrims camped out overnight in the alleys around St. Peter's Basilica in anticipation of the requiem Mass. Helicopters clattered overhead and sirens screamed through city streets.
Italian authorities banned private vehicle traffic in the center of Rome, closed airspace over the city and lined up antiaircraft rocket launchers.
Schools and public offices were closed. Twenty-seven giant screens were erected to broadcast three hours of funeral coverage across Rome.
Early today, the pope's body was being placed in a simple cypress coffin before its transfer to the steps in front of the basilica.
Only VIPs were allowed into a small area outside the building.
The sea of people barred from St. Peter's Square stretched back a quarter of a mile in some places. The crowd carried portraits of the pontiff, waved flags from his native Poland and other countries and waited under a mostly cloudy sky for the ceremony to begin.
The Vatican also found itself treading on delicate diplomatic territory Thursday. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was en route to the funeral Thursday in defiance of a European Union travel ban. And when the Vatican welcomed President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan, China called off its plans to send a high-level delegation.
President Bush, heading the U.S. delegation, spent much of the day out of public view. He met with Italian officials and apologized for a March shooting in Iraq, in which U.S. troops killed an Italian agent shortly after he had freed an Italian hostage held by militants.
The collection of dignitaries is unrivaled in recent memory. John Paul's funeral is bringing together Bush and two of his enemies, the leaders of Iran and Syria; clerics of rival faiths; heads of nations recently at war.
With the ancient city inundated by pilgrims, Vatican authorities allowed a final stream of faithful to enter St. Peter's Basilica and file past the pope's body Thursday.
Police had blocked anyone else from joining the line late Wednesday, but relented in the face of tearful pleas from the last arrivals, many of them Poles who had journeyed to Rome.
