April 3, 2005
Source: BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4405669.stm
On April 3, 2005 BBC News reported, "Italian officials and Vatican clerics have been paying their respects to Pope John Paul II, whose body is lying in state in the Vatican. Mourners, including Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, filed past the Pope shown on television dressed in a crimson robe and a white mitre. Earlier, tens of thousands of mourners in St Peter's Square in Rome attended an open-air Mass in honour of the Pope. John Paul II died on Saturday after a long illness, aged 84."