Sunday, April 3 2005 19:23 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Vatican City: Pope John Paul II's body was put on display before the world today (Apr 3, 2005) as more than 100,000 people packed St Peter's cobblestoned square for a huge open-air mass in memory of their "father and shepherd".

Television images showed the body lying in state for the first time since the Pontiff died yesterday, aged 84.

The Pope, his face serene, was dressed in red and white vestments and a white mitre. He was laid out on a raised velvet-draped dais flanked by two Swiss Guards in the Clementine Room on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace.

A crucifix, crooked in an elbow, flanked his body to the left. His head, propped on velvet pillows, leaned slightly to the right. On his feet were brown leather shoes.

Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, the Cardinal Camerlengo or temporary leader of the Catholic Church until the election of a new Pope, stepped forward to sprinkle holy water over John Paul II's body and recited a funerary prayer.

Dozens of officials and Cardinals of the Roman Curia, or Vatican Government, lined up to file past the Pope's body in the hushed room, as well as Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Cabinet Ministers.

"It is true. Our soul is shaken by a painful event. Our father and shepherd, John Paul II has left us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dead Pope's secretary of state, said at the solemn mass which he concelebrated with dozens of Cardinals.

"For 26 years he carried the Gospel of Christian hope to all the squares around the world, teaching everyone that our death is only a passage to the heavenly fatherland," said Sodano in his homily.