Pope John Paul II made an early start on Saturday, rising before 5 a.m. to follow Italian TV's six-hour live broadcast of Mother Teresa's funeral in Calcutta, according to Italian media reports yesterday. While the papal household followed the funeral on TV, the Diocese of Rome offered a more public commemoration of Mother Teresa with a memorial service in the Church of St John Lateran, presided over by the Papal Vicariate Cardinal Camillo Ruini and attended by members of many religious orders including nuns from Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity.
Although there is no modern precedent for a Pope to attend the funeral of a world or religious leader outside Italy, many commentators have speculated in the last week that the Pope would dearly have liked to go to Calcutta for Mother Teresa's funeral.
The Vatican gave no official reason last week for the Pope's sending Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano rather than attending himself but most Vatican sources suggest that concern over the 77-year-old's Pontiff's health was the most likely reason.
The Pope is scheduled to make a four-day visit to Brazil early next month and Vatican sources suggest his medical advisers argued that two transcontinental trips in three weeks might be too taxing. For nearly two years now, the Pope has looked increasingly frail and tired, with independent medical experts suggesting that he suffers from Parkinson's Disease, a suggestion the Vatican has never denied.