The Pope has been dead for a while now and he has been sitting at room temperature out in the open for a day or so. I’m guessing that the temperature inside St Peter’s Basilica must be pretty high, due to lots of people passing though it.
Isn’t the Pope going to be a bit, shall we say ‘ripe‘ come Friday? The last thing we want is for the Pope to explode due to decomposition gases at the funeral, showering the great and good and assembled masses with decayed holy entrails.
On the other hand it might make for some of the best TV in ages.
“And finally tonight, we have some slowmotion footage of the moment when Tony Blair has hit by a flying kidney in the Papal explosion at the funeral of JP II earlier today”
Did they embalm him?
Or is he laying on top of a cold slab or something?
Enquiring minds demand an answer.
Me n the kids have been wondering about this too. What I want to know most though is this : When they were carrying his body accross the square, they stopped at the end and tipped the body up so the crowd could see him…so what stopped his body sliding off? My vote was for velcro, my son thinks they used those annoying plastic coated metal ties, the ones you use to secure toys into boxes. I’d love to know but somehow I doubt the Vatican will ever let on. ;o)
I’ve just been looking at the photos on the BBC site. It looks like there is a wedge or something under his feet, I wonder if that had something to do with it?
I did notice that his skin was starting to take on a rather marbled look, so I don’t think he’ll be fresh for much longer.
There is more info from the BBC now:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4417155.stm
Still awaiting a Papal explosion.