D.C.'s Kennedy Farewell

Friday January 29, 1999 12:00 AM EST

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An estimated 4,500 people from all over the country gathered Sunday at the vast Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in the nation's capital to pay their final respects to John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Kennedy Bessette and Lauren Bessette. The mass honoring the trio killed in an airplane crash July 16 was held in the largest Catholic church in the Western Hemisphere. Kennedy "was a symbol of a generation coming into its own," said the Rev. William E. Lori, Auxiliary Bishop of Washington, D.C. "He revered his famous father, shared the life of his famous family, yet carved out a path all his own," Lori said during the homily. "Carolyn and Lauren, while not so completely in the spotlight, were women of accomplishment in their own right."

• The dog and cat that belonged to John Kennedy and his wife Carolyn are perfectly safe, sources say. Family friends tell the New York Daily News that Ruby the cat and Friday the dog were already on Martha's Vineyard when Kennedy's plane crashed. The animals may be adopted by Kennedy's sister Caroline and her three children.
  
  
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