MANILA, Philippines – Millions of Catholic pilgrims are expected to attend the beatification rites for Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, where the well-loved late Pontiff will be proclaimed blessed by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, six years after he passed away at age 84.The beatification rites, which bring the Polish church leader a step closer to sainthood, coincides with the Catholic Church’s observance of Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast that he established on April 30, 2000 during the canonization of Polish nun St. Faustina Kowalska, the Apostle of the Divine Mercy. The observance focuses on her diary, which Jesus requested her to write in the 1930s “for mankind to know about His great mercy and His promise of complete forgiveness of sins on Divine Mercy Sunday.”
St. Peter’s Basilica will remain open on Sunday to accommodate the faithful, including Filipino Catholics and thousands of students across the world, who want to pray before his tomb.
The process for Pope John Paul II’s beatification was the fastest on record as never before has a Pope beatified his immediate successor. Waiving the five-year waiting period, Pope Benedict XVI started the process about two months after Pope John Paul II’s death on April 2, 2005 after a French nun, Sr. Marie Simon-Pierre’s miraculous cure from Parkinson’s disease after she prayed to him.
The first non-Italian Pope in 455 years and serving for 27 years from October 16, 1978 up to the time of his death, the Vatican newspaper refers to Pope John Paul II as “a passionate witness to Christ from his childhood to his last breath.
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