Pope John Paul ii Beatification News

Has Tony Blair been invited? Wasn’t it Mr Brown who actually invited Pope Benedict XVI to the UK on the first ever state visit by a pope (before Her Majesty even got a look-in)?

Perhaps the House of Windsor was getting its own back after the 2005 clash, when the death of a pope caused (by cosmic coincidence) the cancellation of another royal wedding (except, of course, that Buckingham Palace made the announcement of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton before the Vatican decided on this bank holiday weekend to beatify Pope John Paul II – the clash was entirely the fault of the Vatican's saint-making department). Not because (unlike the most recent beatification of Cardinal Newman) the corpse of the late Pope has barely begun to rot (though that is doubtless true). 

Why did he resist any investigation into the role of women in the Roman Catholic Church? Bernard Fellay, of the Society of Saint Pius X recently incommunicated by Pope Benedict XVI, sees Pope John Paul II as a sort of Antichrist for instigating and participating in multi-faith prayer conferences, particularly in Assisi in 1986. The cult of John Paul the Great has gained an unstoppable momentum. The Roman Catholic Church is not ‘making’ John Paul II ‘blessed’: in Roman Catholic theology, they are affirming what has already occurred in heaven. The crowd erupted in cheers, tears and applause as an enormous photo of a smiling John Paul was unveiled over the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica and a choir launched into a hymn long associated with the Polish-born pope.

Benedict pronounced John Paul "Blessed" shortly after the start of the Mass, held under sunny skies and amid a sea of Poland's red and white flags.

Benedict then received a silver reliquary holding a vial of blood taken from John Paul during his final hospitalization. It was presented to him by Sister Tobiana, the Polish nun who tended to John Paul during his pontificate, and Sister Marie Simone-Pierre of France, whose inexplicable recovery from Parkinson's disease was decreed to be the miracle necessary for John Paul to be beatified.

Helicopters flew overhead, police boats patrolled the nearby Tiber River and some 5,000 uniformed troops patrolled police barricades to ensure priests, official delegations and those with coveted VIP passes could get to their places.

"John Paul was a wonderful man and it's a privilege to be here. It's the fastest beatification on record, coming just six years after John Paul died and beating out the beatification of Mother Teresa by a few days.

Benedict put John Paul on the fast-track for possible sainthood when he dispensed with the traditional five-year waiting period and allowed the beatification process to begin weeks after his April 2, 2005, death. Benedict was responding to chants of "Santo Subito" or "Sainthood Immediately" which erupted during John Paul's funeral.

Source : dailybulletin.com