April 4, 2005
Mourners share grief in pope's tech-savvy footsteps
Pope John Paul II was known as a gifted communicator in an electronic age and his followers are making creative use of e-mail, mobile phones and text messages to share their grief. The AFP reports.
-- Italians had already spread a phone text message Saturday afternoon inviting people to gather in Saint Peter's Square to pray for Pope John Paul II while he was still hovering between life and death.
The idea was launched by a radio listener who called into a program on Italy's Radio 24 and urged all listeners to send messages out to their friends to come to the square.
The message quickly spread to other Italian cities: Let's all meet in front of the cathedrals of our cities at 17:30 (1530 GMT), it read. Other text messages circulating urged people to pray for the pope.
- A candle at your window for the pope to illuminate his road to GOD as he has illuminated it for the world for 27 years" said one message, referring to the length of John Paul II's pontificate.
- In Spain, at least 2,000 people flocked to Madrid's Plaza de Colon after the pope's passing when they received the call to prayer via their cellular phones and computers.
- In Zagreb, hundreds of mainly young Croatians used their mobile phones to pass the word of the pope's demise.
- Foreigners in Zagreb also sent texts to communicate with friends abroad."
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