In death, Pope John Paul II left behind one last message -- of peace and brotherhood -- that has sown embarrassment and confusion among some of those who came to mourn at Friday's funeral.
After Britain's Prince Charles was obliged to concede that he did shake hands with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, a red-faced Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has insisted that, contrary to the claims of his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Katsav, they did not.
For Prince Charles, the embarrassment has only intensified as the Zimbabwean media have claimed British Prime Minister Tony Blair left his designated seat next to Mugabe at the funeral. The Herald newspaper said Blair, wife Cherie and Tory leader Michael Howard all left their seats when they saw Mugabe coming.
As the prime ministers, presidents and princes, party leaders and high officials -- by their thousands -- filed out to their places in front of St Peter's, they were without advisors or ambassadors to steer them away from unsuitable encounters.
By Katsav's own account -- denied furiously by Khatami -- they shook hands and spoke briefly in Farsi about the region of Yazd in Iran where both men were born.
"The President of Iran extended his hand to me, I shook it and told him in Farsi, `May peace be upon you,'" Katsav said.
The Israeli and Syrian delegations, meanwhile, were seated next to each other at the service. "I told him [Bashar Assad] `Good morning' and he shook my hand," Katsav said. Israel and Syria last held peace talks in 2000.
A happier meeting was between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French President Jacques Chirac. The two countries may have exchanged insults over Iraq, but it was a gracious Chirac who kissed Rice's hand.
For Prince Charles, it was a more difficult call. As the mass drew to a conclusion, two million Catholics turned to each other to offer the "sign of peace." The prince, two seats away from Mugabe, was offered the Zimbabwean dictator's hand and shook it; perhaps not to have done so would have been offensive to the spirit of the funeral.
But critics such as Member of European Parliament Richard Corbett said that "Prince Charles should have refused to shake his hand. In fact, this was a golden opportunity deliberately and very visibly to refuse to shake hands with this man. To fail to do so was, frankly, stupid."
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