THE Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, paid tribute to the Pope’s achievement in becoming a moral voice to the world as millions of worshippers at churches across the nation joined in prayers of remembrance yesterday.

“We met him in his strength and we also met him in his acceptance of suffering,” said Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, spiritual leader of the four million Roman Catholics of England and Wales, who will hold a public vespers for the dead today and fly to Rome tomorrow to attend the funeral and conclave.

He will return after the conclave unless elected Pope. Bookmakers have him as a 20-1 outsider. The favourite rarely wins.

The cardinal would not be drawn on his choice, but said that he believed that the next Pope would continue to work along the same lines as John Paul II in terms of ecumenism, peace and evangelism.

“I suspect there will be a deepening and continuance, but perhaps with a different colour, a different shade, of what Pope John Paul has done,” he said. “I think the papacy will never be the same again.”

The cardinal added that, even if people did not agree with the Pope’s values, they respected his moral leadership.

Earlier the cardinal led a Requiem Mass attended by nearly 4,000 people at Westminster Cathedral. Worshippers spilt on to the piazza in front of the cathedral when there was no space left inside, to hear the service broadcast on loudspeakers. Among the congregation were Cherie Blair, the Prime Minister’s wife, and John Reid, the Health Secretary. The Queen was represented by Lord and Lady Camoys.

During the service the cardinal said that there had been a sense of gladness that the Pope’s suffering was over.

Inside, condolence messages in many languages had been left and a small Polish flag hung below a portrait of the Pope. Yellow and white ribbons adorned candles throughout the cathedral.

Peter Moore, a town crier, said that the service was very moving and he was happy that the Pope was at peace: “This is a time of celebration, not of sadness. He was a great Pope, a Pope of the people. He went to the world and the world is now coming to him.”

Helen Fox, from Peterborough, who listened to the service outside the cathedral, found the atmosphere solemn. “He was a people’s man and there could be a lot of change now, but we hope not,” she said.

In Edinburgh, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who will also take part in the conclave, led a Requiem Mass for the man he said should be remembered as “the Pope of the underdog”.

Addressing 800 grieving Catholics and people of other denominations and faiths at St Mary’s Cathedral, he said that it would be many years before the Pope’s legacy would be fully understood. “He was the Pope of the weak, of the infirm, of the elderly person threatened with euthanasia. He was the Pope of the hungry and starving in Africa, and of those suffering under communism.”

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