There have also been rumors that it could be the Polish pontiff's longtime private secretary Stanislaw Dziwisz, whom John Paul II created archbishop at the same time as the last consistory.
According to the article in "America," the Catholic weekly, if the pope dies before the secret cardinal's name is made public, he is ineligible to participate in the selection of the new pope. Sometimes, the appointed cardinal does not know he's been appointed.
President Bush and former president George H.W. Bush pay their respects to Pope John Paul II as he lies in repose at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
(Danilo Schiavella - AFP)
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Cardinal Ignatius Gong Pinmei of Shanghai, who spent 30 years in a Chinese prison, was made a cardinal "in pectore" in 1979. According to an article in "America," "Gong had an audience with the pope[in 1989] and learned that he had been elevated to cardinal. The pope did not announce the choice until 1991."
The number of mourners and curiosity seekers who viewed Pope John Paul II's body at St. Peter's Basilica surpassed a million Wednesday and may be headed for 3 million by some estimates, as the city of Rome braced for an influx of pilgrims from abroad for Friday's funeral.
So long is the line that the last people in it can expect to wait 14 hours before getting in to the basilica. No more people were allowed to join the line after 10 p.m. local time Wednesday.
City workers put up a tent city on Rome's outskirts, and thousands of police officers were dispatched to the streets to keep order. Traffic patterns on some of Rome's busiest avenues and bridges were altered to make way for buses and pedestrians streaming to St. Peter's Square.
On Monday, the first day the public was allowed to view the pope's body, 400,000 people visited St. Peter's Basilica. An additional 600,000 came on Tuesday, police said. The possibility that 2 million pilgrims might arrive from Poland alone had city officials wondering how to cope.
"We'll have millions of people, but we do not know how many," Mayor Walter Veltroni said as he inspected the tent city, which was being equipped with cots and portable toilets. "We have to organize the city in as flexible a way as possible."
The unbroken flow of visitors toward the basilica was orderly. Volunteers handed out free water, and a few in the crowd who fainted were carried off on stretchers by first-aid workers. At St. Peter's Square, some visitors had waited all night to get in. After the basilica was closed at 3 a.m. for almost two hours of cleaning, the crowd, left standing in the chilly air, chanted, "Open, open!"
In addition to President Bush and the other members of the official U.S. delegation, the dignitaries attending the funeral also will include presidents Mohammad Khatami of Iran and Bashar Assad of Syria, whose governments both appear on the U.S. State Department's list of countries that support terrorism.
The influx of world leaders is likely to eclipse the 105 foreign delegations that attended the funeral of Pope Paul VI in 1978, Rome city officials said. "It will be unprecedented," Veltroni said.
Such funerals are steeped in tradition, and the Vatican's head of liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Piero Marini, outlined some details of the preparations. John Paul will be placed in three coffins, one of cypress within one of zinc within a third of walnut. Medallions with the dates of his reign will be placed inside; previously, bronze and silver coins were put in. A written biography will be read and rolled into a metal container for burial with the pope. His face will be covered by a white veil.
He will be placed in an underground tomb that until 2001 had held the body of Pope John XXIII, whose remains were moved upstairs after he was beatified, a step toward sainthood.
Navarro-Valls and Marini spoke at a news conference Tuesday during which they provided few details of the second preliminary meeting among cardinals who are in Rome to attend the funeral and select a new pope.
The officials did describe a new wrinkle in the 100-year-old process of announcing that a new pope has been selected. This time, the traditional signal of white smoke sent up a Vatican chimney, created with the burning of ballots in a stove, will be joined by the ringing of St. Peter's bells.
The addition was prompted by the confusion that occurred during John Paul's selection in 1978. Several times, observers had trouble distinguishing whether the smoke was black, meaning another vote was needed, or white. "The stove ritual will remain the same, but we will try to make it work better than last time," Marini said. "The bells will also peal out joyfully so journalists don't have any doubt."
Enforced secrecy shrouds not only the conclave but the deliberations leading up to it. In the past, that meant cardinals were locked inside the Apostolic Palace, the huge building off St. Peter's Square that also contains the pope's residence. But in an innovation, cardinals will be allowed to move around specified areas of the Vatican and even to stroll in its gardens.
"This time it's a looser lockup," Marini said. "Before, cardinals were shut inside, the windows were sealed, they shared bathrooms, five or six in one. In some ways it was easier, as they were all corralled in to make a decision, but there were many difficulties -- the poor men couldn't get out."
Fred Barbash reported from Washington. Washington Post special correspondent Sarah Delaney contributed to this article.
