An Alternative to Embalming for the Pontiff
An Alternative to Embalming for the Pontiff
Instead of a mortician with old Vatican ties, a specialist was called to preserve the pope's body, and was sworn to secrecy on the process.
ROME — When he heard that Pope John Paul II had died, Massimo Signoracci crossed himself, murmured a prayer and waited for a call that never came.
The Signoracci clan, a dynasty of morticians and embalmers whose roots go back to an old Roman cemetery on an island in the Tiber River, has ministered to the last three popes and hoped to be asked to tend to this one as well.
