It was eerily recognizable -- the familiar hooked nose, the rotund belly, the big hands, the "Camauro," or white fur-trimmed red bonnet designed in the 12th century that John liked wearing because it kept his head warm in the cold Vatican halls.

The coffin, which looked like a crystal boudoir jewelry box framed in gold, was rolled out of a side entrance of the basilica on a wheeled, red-draped platform.

Inside the glass box, John's body was dressed in a white, silk cassock and red cape. His big head rested on damask red pillows. His face was covered with a wax mask.

The coffin stood in the square as Pope John Paul said a mass for tens of thousands of people.

Pope John will join only two other pontiffs to be placed in glass coffins inside the church. The others are Saint Pius X and Innocent XI.

A HISTORICAL RARITY

Sunday's ceremony marked one of the rare times in history that a living pope and the body of a dead pope were in the square at the same time.

In his homily, the Pope said it was a "happy coincidence" that John's body had returned to the same square where tens of thousands of people prayed for him on the night of June 3, 1963, as he lay on his deathbed, his stomach ravaged by cancer.

The body of John, who was beatified and put on the road to sainthood last year, was exhumed in January and found to be in surprisingly good condition.

Although some thought it was a miracle, the conservation was in fact due to the work of Professor Gennaro Goglia, a doctor who secretly embalmed the dead pope with a special liquid.

Goglia, now 78, said his emotions on seeing the face were mixed.

"It made me think of Madame Tussauds (Wax Museum)," he told Reuters Television. "It could have been handled better," he said, adding that a cleansing solution would have given the dead pope a more natural look.

In the past five months since it was exhumed, technicians have been working to keep the body preserved so that it could remain visible to the faithful.

Since it was exhumed, the body of John was effectively "mummified," as one technician put it. The coffin's glass is bullet-proof and treated to block ultra-violet rays which could damage the body.

John, known as the "Good Pope" because of his jovial and benevolent nature, reigned from 1958 to 1963.

BRIEF REIGN, HISTORIC PAPACY

Although his reign was relatively brief, he revolutionized the Roman Catholic Church by calling the Second Vatican Council, which modernized the Church.

After Sunday's mass the body was moved into the basilica's main floor, and, after faithful are allowed to file past it for a day, it will be placed permanently in a side chapel.

The body had been kept in a marble crypt in the Vatican grottoes under the basilica along with many of the 147 other popes who are buried inside Christendom's largest church.

Although Vatican officials are not commenting, there has been widespread speculation that the current Pontiff some day may be buried in the spot in the grottoes where John XXIII was.

Nearly four decades after his death, the man born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli remains one of history's most loved popes, with a particularly devout following in Italy.

He has been credited with curing an Italian nun, Caterina Capitani, of a stomach tumor. She prayed to him and quickly recovered with no apparent medical explanation.

By Sarah Delaney
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, June 4, 2001; Page A14 

VATICAN CITY, June 3 -- The disinterred body of Pope John XXIII, the much-loved pontiff who initiated radical changes in the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960s, was wheeled through St. Peter's Square in a crystal coffin today before being laid in a new, prominent position in St. Peter's Basilica.

In an extraordinary gesture of respect, the current pope, John Paul II, said a special Mass to honor his "unforgettable predecessor." Today's ceremonies coincided with the 38th anniversary of John's death and Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter, when the Bible says the Holy Ghost descended on the disciples of Jesus.

The Vatican estimated that 40,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square, but the piazza in front of the massive basilica was not full. Many, especially those who grew up during John's papacy, were moved to tears when the embalmed body of the man born Angelo Roncalli in northern Italy in 1881 passed by. News reports said his face was covered by a wax mask made after the body was disinterred in January.

John's body had been buried in the grotto, or lower level, of St. Peter's, along with many other popes. Dressed in an ermine-trimmed stole, he was wheeled through the square on a red-draped platform before being placed in a permanent place of honor under the altar of St. Girolamo.

John's humble and gentle manner belied a character tough enough to take on a rigid and dogmatic church. During his short tenure, from 1958 to 1963, "the good pope" opened the doors to decentralization, greater participation by lay Catholics and ecumenism with the convocation of the historic Second Vatican Council. He did not live to see the conclusion of the council, in 1965, which among others things approved the use of local languages instead of Latin in Masses and rejected the idea that Jews were responsible for Jesus's crucifixion.

John was beatified last Sept. 3, along with the widely criticized Pius IX, who was pope from 1846 to 1878. 

                                © 2001 The Washington Post Company