WASHINGTON – President Bush will lead more than 200 world leaders from all faiths to Pope John Paul II’s funeral at the Vatican.
“Laura and I are looking forward to leading a delegation to honor the holy father,” Bush said. “It is my great honor, on behalf of our country, to express our gratitude to the Almighty for such a man.”
The president and first lady Laura Bush will leave Wednesday for Rome.
Also heading for the Vatican will be British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles, French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In addition, Poland’s President Aleksander Kwasniewski and his wife, Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka and former Polish President Lech Walesa will attend.
Heads of state and royalty from Albania to Venezuela will be arriving.
It will be an unprecedented showing for the funeral of a pope. “If you compare, the funerals of previous popes were all low-key,” said a European diplomat.
The leaders of non-Catholic countries also will be present, including Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and the political hierarchy of Lebanon.
The Arab League of Muslim states ordered its flags lowered to half-staff.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not attending. Instead, he is sending Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Israeli President Moshe Katsav.
Religious leaders traveling to Rome include Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir.
The Cuban regime of Fidel Castro, which had a tense relationship with the pope, declared a three-day mourning period and lowered the nation’s flag to half-staff.
Castro, a former altar boy who embraced the pope during the pontiff’s 1998 visit to the island, is not expected to attend, a Cuban diplomat said. Castro is still recovering from a fall he took in October and the subsequent surgery to repair his knee.
About 150 House and Senate members, most of them Catholic, were following papal protocol and waiting to see whether they would get invitations to attend the funeral from the Vatican, a Capitol Hill source said.
Comments are no longer available on this story