World Tunes In To Pope's Funeral

(CBS/AP)  Large crowds gathered at churches from the Philippines to Poland Friday in a massive global farewell to Pope John Paul II, bowing their heads in prayer and watching live broadcasts of the funeral on large TV screens.

There were 7,000 mourners in Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral, reports CBS News Correspondent Elaine Cobbe, and several hundred outside in the pouring rain where giant screens and loudspeakers retransmitted funeral and 24 hours of prayers and services for the pope.

Karol Wojtyla had long links with France. He studied at the Sorbonne in the late 1940s and lived at the Irish College in Paris on many occasions, working with Polish priests based there until recently. One of his first foreign trips as pope was to Paris where he held a youth rally in the Parc des Princes football stadium. It was so successful he used to ask on later trips elsewhere, "Will there be a Parc des Princes?"

"He was a pope for humanity," said Assemian Omer Alain, a 40-year-old from Ivory Coast who had come to the Sacre Coeur basilica overlooking Paris to pray for the pope. "He was a phenomenon. All religions were the same to him. He made no difference between Christian or Muslim."

Schools and business closed across the country as Poland mourned its national hero.

Up to a million people gathered in a vast field in Krakow, Poland — where the pope was once archbishop — to follow the televised service on large video screens. CBS Newsman Bill Gasperini reports the crowd stretched as far as the eye could see, to a ridge 2-3 miles away. The site was where the pope celebrated several masses on his visits back to Poland, and some Poles consider it almost sacred ground.

In Madrid, Spanish and Vatican flags with black ribbons hung from balconies and shops.

Several thousand Slovaks gathered for an open-air Mass in a Bratislava suburb in the same place where the pontiff celebrated a Mass for 200,000 faithful during his last trip to Slovakia in 2003.

Among the faithful, some of whom held Vatican flags, were Slovak government ministers, including Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda with his wife, Eva.

"I'm very sad that the Holy Father is no longer among us," Dzurinda said. "I am well aware of what he has meant for Slovaks, for myself and my nearest ones."

The funeral was televised on both of Israel's main television stations, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger. The broadcasts also showed many pictures of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and analysts on both stations were positive about his life and relationship with the Jewish people.

Throughout Asia, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs joined Roman Catholics in church services and prayers to honor the pontiff, who is credited with reaching out to other denominations.

In Tokyo, the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, urged people to continue the pontiff's legacy of peace.

"Firstly, we lost a great human being, a leader of a great religion but also one very good human being," the Dalai Lama said. "Now it is important that we must carry all his messages and guidance with us. We must make every effort to fulfill his wishes."

An estimated 1,500 Japanese packed a memorial Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral, some spilling outside under the blazing sun. Mourners — some veiled in black, others dabbing their faces with towels — watched the service on a giant TV screen atop a truck.

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