John Paul's Soldiers

On Monday, the body of John Paul II will be moved to St. Peter's Basilica under the great dome of Michelangelo, so the public can pay its last respects. His funeral is expected Friday, and Rome is bracing for hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.

One of the last to see the pope alive was an American cardinal, close to John Paul's heart. He's Edmund Cardinal Szoka, the man the pope entrusted to run the Vatican.

"I have this executive authority, so I have the authority to run, to manage this country," Szoka tells .

Most Americans may not realize it, but the president of the country known as the Vatican is from Grand Rapids, Mich. Szoka runs it all from construction to security. He shared the pope's friendship, his Polish heritage, and was by his side on Friday.

"They had him propped up on pillows. There were three doctors on one side of the bed helping him, so I went to the other side and I knelt down, and kissed his hand," says Szoka. "I want to say that he was perfectly lucid, perfectly conscious, and I know he recognized me immediately, because he couldn't speak, but looking at me with his eyes, and then nodding, you know, trying to say, you know, 'Nice to see you.'"

"He was having very serious difficulty breathing. It was very labored and it was hard. He had to almost, they were helping him with various ways of getting air into his lungs," adds Szoka. "It was a very sad sight to see him have to struggle almost for every breath. I'm a priest and I'm used to giving blessings to people, so when I got up, without even thinking about, 'This is the pope,' I gave him my blessing and he blessed himself when I did that."

As the Vatican prepares for the funeral, Szoka showed 60 Minutes the Vatican City you don't often see, including a new innovation for the papal election. For the first time in hundreds of years, the College of Cardinals will have a proper place to stay while choosing the next pope.

"They used to have to put up cots and they would have four or five cardinals in a room such as we were in for the interview and they had some bathrooms but not enough," says Szoka. "It was a real penance to go through that thing. Of course, it had one advantage. It was so uncomfortable, it might have speeded up the election."

Over the last months of the pope's life, 60 Minutes has been looking into another story at the Vatican that suggests John Paul II will retain, long after his death, a powerful influence over the American church, in part because of young Americans studying at the North American Pontifical College.

It's the pope's own school for Americans -- the West Point of seminaries. The students there call themselves "John Paul's Soldiers." They're intellectual, passionate about evangelism and much more conservative than the generation of American priests before them.

The pope was meeting his new graduates, the ones he called "the young people." It wasn't what the pope said about the new deacons from the North American Pontifical College, but his struggle to say it to them in person, that spoke volumes about how much he cared for this seminary -- and the men who will be his living legacy.

Deacon David Carter, 25, is from Knoxville, Tenn. Like almost all the students in the seminary, John Paul is the only pope he's ever known. He says he's comfortable with John Paul's view of the clergy and the clergy's role.

"There are lots of people back in the United States who say priests should marry. They would understand families better. They would understand single parents better," says Pelley. "Women should be allowed to participate in the priesthood. Many people believe that in the United States."

What does Carter say about that? "I don't think it's a matter of John Paul II, you know, just flipping a switch one day and saying, 'Oh, well, now we're gonna change and have these rules and that rule,'" says Carter, who will be ordained a priest back home this summer. "I think it's a matter of the integrity of the gospel message from Christ. It might sound quite blunt, but I don't think you can be Catholic and not follow these teachings of the church."
Ronnie Floyd, 23, is brand new to Rome. He's from Fall River, Mass., and part of John Paul's last freshman class. What does it mean to be "John Paul's soldiers"?

"It means that we're a new crop, a different generation that are really very zealous for spreading the faith, in a way that it hasn't been spread for maybe 100 years," says Floyd.

The students are handpicked by the pope's American bishops, and sent to the top of Gianiculum Hill, serenely within the borders of Vatican City. They live and breathe Catholic theology here. About 150 students study 2,000 years of history with the help of computer programs no other university would need.

"John Paul's soldiers" study his writings and enlist in his conservative campaigns -- an all male clergy, celibacy, marriage only between a man and a woman, rejection of artificial birth control, genetic research, repudiation of war in most cases and abortion in all cases. The new generation meets old time religion with total devotion.

"He's the only pope that they've known," says Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal, one of America's most important Catholic magazines. He says this generation of young men embrace all of John Paul's philosophy, while older American priests do not. There are a lot of issues that American Catholics would like to open up for discussion: the issue of married priests, divorced single mothers taking communion, and genetic research. But John Paul's answer to all of these has been no. And these young men seem to support his position.

"They're all very much opposed to the direction of which American culture seems to be going," says Baumann. "The pope offers an alternative vision of what American life can be -- what life can be like, what is meaningful."

"But the pope's position on many of these issues is opposed to what a lot of people in American pews are thinking," says Pelley.

"Yes, I think that's accurate," says Baumann.

Dan Hanley, 33, will be preaching to the people in the pews of Arlington, Va. What does he say to those who believe the pope has not entered the modern age when it comes to the clergy?

"If you look at most of the people that say that, they're mostly older," says Hanley. "If you look at most of the people that think that he is engaging the modern world, and speaking to them, it's the youth."

About 800 young men have graduated from this seminary over the course of John Paul's pontificate, and if history is any guide, those men are likely to be among the most important Catholic leaders in America.

The school building is almost literally in the shadow of the dome of St. Peter's. The college was created in 1859, and it's hard to overestimate the influence this place has had on the church back in the United States. Among all American seminaries, this one has produced by far the most bishops and cardinals -- cardinals who will help elect the next pope.

There are 13 cardinals in the United States -- seven are alumni of the college, leading some of America's largest archdioceses in New York, Baltimore and Detroit.

What is the influence of this place going to be on the church over the next generation?
"This place is not much different than all the seminaries back home. I think the guys have the same voice," says Hanley. "Some people like to use this term of 'John Paul's soldiers.' I like to use more -- we're followers of John Paul II. But I would say you'd be hard pressed to find any guy, in any seminary, either here or in the United States, that's not a follower of John Paul II. So, talk about his legacy. His legacy will continue in each one of us, you can be sure of that."

Lenny Gonzales, from Bethesda, Md., is in his third year. When the men in this seminary look at John Paul, what do they see? "I would say they see a hero," says Gonzales.

Gonzales was a nuclear submarine engineer specializing in acoustics when he heard the call. Now, he's 40. The call came later than most, but he remembers seeing the pope in Baltimore's Camden Yards, back in 1995. That experience never left him. A few years later, he says, he quit his job to study under the "great" man who inspired him.

"There have been two popes in the history of the church that have the title 'the Great.' You have Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, the 5th century and the 6th century," says Gonzales. "Now the rumor is that John Paul II will be the next 'Great,' the next pope whose title will be 'the Great.' That says a lot when you talking about 2,000 years of history, and only two popes have been given that title."

Those inspired by John Paul will lead the church for at least the next 40 years. They will be challenged by fewer worshipers at Mass -- the fallout and shame of the sex abuse scandals and fewer men following them into the priesthood.

While they may not be a large group, they speak with conviction in defense of the church's moral stands, and the pope's support of them.

"They're looking for truth. A truth. We recognize that certain truths don't change," says Baumann. "Certain things are right, and certain things are wrong, and they're looking for that. And sometimes I think in our culture, it's suggested that the truth is a question of majority rule. Well, certainly John Paul II has said that's not the case. The truth is something that you can recognize -- that is not up to majority rule and that we need to protect."

In October, 60 Minutes was allowed a rare opportunity to join the students of the North American Pontifical College, for their ancient graduation rite in the Vatican's St. Peter's Basilica.

After four years of study, they were ordained deacons below the nearly 400-year-old dome designed by Michelangelo. They lay near what are believed to be the remains of the first pope, St. Peter, in a gesture of unworthiness before God and the need for prayer.

A class photo was taken at the bronze alter of the chair thought to hold the remains of St. Peter's wooden throne. From the seat of the Catholic Church, they will head back to America, as sure of their beliefs as they were of their pope – the last American class of John Paul II.

"John Paul was a man of the 20th century," says Pelley. "Ministering in the 21st century is your problem."

"That's right. I don't know what's gonna happen 20 or 30 years down the road, but things are going to be difficult," says Gonzales.

"I like to think that I'm gonna have a small part in trying to make the world better in my own little neck of the woods. And if I can do that, then I think I've fulfilled my mission in life, and also been true to the message of John Paul II."