More from from Rome and beyond

• INFLUX OF PILGRIMS | 6 p.m. ET 

In Rome, officials were scrambling for a huge influx of pilgrims — up to 2 million of them — seeking to pay final respects to Pope John Paul II.

The College of Cardinals — the red-capped “princes of the church” who now officially govern the 1 billion-strong Roman Catholic Church — was to hold its first meeting Monday, a pre-conclave gathering expected to plan and set a date for the funeral later this week at St. Peter’s Square.

President Bush was expected to attend the funeral, which will draw other world leaders as well as Vatican hierarchy and ordinary faithful.

• MOURNING IN MIDEAST | 4:10 p.m. ET

Israelis and Arabs united in mourning on Sunday for Pope John Paul, hailing him as a man of peace who sought to heal ancient wounds and forge a brighter future for the Middle East.

At the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, the faithful lit candles next to a portrait of the pope. Worshippers in Nazareth, the Galilee town where Jesus grew to manhood, filled the Basilica of the Annunciation.

In Jerusalem, hundreds of worshippers chanting hymns marched by candlelight in the pouring rain through the old walled city to Gethsemane, the site where Jesus was believed to have been arrested before his crucifixion.

For Israelis, two images stand out: the pope's pilgrimage to Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, and his prayer at Jerusalem's Western Wall for forgiveness for historical Christian mistreatment of Jews.

Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said the pope, who visited a Palestinian refugee camp near Bethlehem five years ago, had shown that "respect for human dignity" was fundamental to resolving the Middle East conflict.

Lebanon, which has more than a million Catholics, most of them Maronites, declared three days of official mourning.

In the mountains of northern Iraq, followers of the ancient Chaldean Christian sect, watched over by guards armed with AK-47 assault rifles, gathered for Mass to mourn the pope.

• REFORM GROUPS QUESTION PAPAL LEGACY | 2:45 p.m. ET

As world leaders hailed Pope John Paul II as a force for peace, Catholic reformers critical of his traditionalist stand on church dogma took issue with his 26-year papacy.

"His pontificate was full of contradictions," We Are Church, an international network of groups aimed at reforming the Roman Catholic Church, said in a statement. "John Paul II was an advocate of human rights in secular life, but he did not apply this belief to the church itself."

"Among the human rights still crying out for recognition in the church are: gender equality — including women's ordination, the right of priests to marry ... the right to be respected for one's sexual orientation and the moral adulthood of the laity in decisions regarding reproduction and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS," We Are Church said.

"The pedophilia scandal exposed a major breach of human rights in the life of the Church generally. Although John Paul II ultimately recognized it as a scandal, this scandal needed much stronger action at a much earlier time," it said.

Church reform groups also criticized the way the pope centralized decision-making in the Vatican and let its bureaucracy, the Curia, discipline critical theologians.

"The Catholic church has unquestionably been helped by his strength and deep personal piety, but some of its energy and creativity have also been limited by the authoritative culture of the Vatican during recent decades," said Linda Pieczynski, spokeswoman for Call to Action, the largest U.S. Catholic reform group.

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