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Pope Benedict XVI beatifies predecessor, mentor and friend Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II prays the Rosary in this L’Osservatore Romano photo dated 4 May 1991. The late Pope will be beatified by his successor Pope Benedict XVI on 1 May. This image, captured by a Vatican photographer, is the second most requested photo from the L’Osservatore Romano archives. PHOTO: CNS/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO
1 May beatification set for Pope John Paul II after miracle approved BY JOHN T HAVIS Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI approved a miracle attributed to Pope John Paul II’s intercession, clearing the way for the late Pope’s beatification on 1 May, Divine Mercy Sunday. Pope Benedict’s action on 14 January followed more than five years of investigation into the life and writings of the Polish Pontiff, who died in April 2005
after more than 26 years as Pope. The Vatican said it took special care with verification of the miracle, the spontaneous cure of a French nun from Parkinson’s disease - the same illness that afflicted Pope John Paul in his final years. Three separate Vatican panels approved the miracle, including medical and theological experts, before Pope Benedict signed the official decree. “There were no concessions given here in procedural severity and thoroughness,” said Cardinal Angelo Amato, head of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes. On the contrary, he said, Pope John Paul’s cause was subject to “particularly careful scrutiny, to remove any doubt.” The Vatican said it would
begin looking at logistical arrangements for the massive crowds expected for the beatification liturgy, which will be celebrated by Pope Benedict at the Vatican. Divine Mercy Sunday had special significance for Pope John Paul, who made it a Church-wide feast day to be celebrated a week after Easter. The Pope died on the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2005. With beatification, Pope John Paul will be declared “blessed” and thus worthy of restricted liturgical honour. Another miracle is needed for canonisation, by which the Church declares a person to be a saint and worthy of universal veneration. The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr
Federico Lombardi, summed up much of the sentiment in Rome when he said Pope John Paul would be beatified primarily for the spiritual gifts of faith, hope and charity that were the source of his papal activity. The world witnessed that spirituality when the Pope prayed, when he spent time with the sick and suffering, in his visits to the impoverished countries of the world and in his own illness “lived out in faith, before God and all of us,” Fr Lombardi said. Fr Lombardi said the Vatican was preparing to move Pope John Paul’s body from the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica to the Chapel of St Sebastian in the basilPlease turn to Page 2
Beatification will confirm global sentiment: this man was great and holy - Page 3
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