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Millions of Mourners for the Pope Expected in Rome

NPR

By Sylvia Poggioli

Published April 4, 2005 at 12:00 AM EDT

Officials plan services for Pope John Paul II, who died Saturday. The public will be able view the pontiff's body for the first time Monday. Rome and Vatican City expect more than 2 million mourners. The pope's funeral is set for Friday morning and his body is to be interred in the grotto at St. Peter's Basilica.

Copyright 2005 NPR

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Sylvia Poggioli

Sylvia Poggioli is senior European correspondent for NPR's International Desk covering political, economic, and cultural news in Italy, the Vatican, Western Europe, and the Balkans. Poggioli's on-air reporting and analysis have encompassed the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the turbulent civil war in the former Yugoslavia, and how immigration has transformed European societies.

See stories by Sylvia Poggioli

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