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Beatification countdown

John Thavis | Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY – As the countdown continued for the
beatification of Pope John Paul II, Church and civil
authorities put the finishing touches on logistical plans to
handle potentially massive crowds at the main events in Rome.

Meanwhile, Vatican officials were heartened at the massive
response to online projects designed to make the
beatification a universal experience.

Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate the beatification Mass in
St. Peter’s Square May 1. Because no tickets are being handed
out for the liturgy, no one really knows how many people to
expect. Estimates range from 300,000 to 1.5 million, and
crowd control barriers will be set up for blocks around the
Vatican.

Immediately after Mass, the faithful can pray before Pope
John Paul’s unopened casket, which will be set in front of
the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica. The veneration is
expected to continue most of the day.

A large crowd is also expected for the prayer vigil April 30
at the site of Rome’s ancient Circus Maximus racetrack, where
Pope Benedict will make a video appearance. Rome church
officials have organized that event to underline the strong
connection between the Polish pope and the Diocese of Rome.

The French nun whose healing was accepted as the miracle
needed for Pope John Paul’s beatification will share her
story with pilgrims at the prayer vigil. Sister
Marie-Simon-Pierre, a member of the Little Sisters of the
Catholic Motherhood, had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s
disease and believes she was cured in 2005 through the
intercession of the late pope.

The morning after the beatification, Cardinal Tarcisio
Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, will celebrate a
Mass of thanksgiving in St. Peter’s Square. That liturgy,
too, is expected to attract tens of thousands of people.

While the size of the crowds remained a mystery, Vatican
officials said their online initiatives had already taken the
beatification to groups and individuals around the world. For
example, the Vatican’s special beatification Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/vatican.johnpaul2 has had more than 6
million visits and has gained nearly 50,000 followers.

Similar pages have been opened at the www.pope2you.net site
aimed at younger audiences and on the Vatican’s YouTube
channel. They offer photos, tributes, key quotes and video
highlights of Pope John Paul’s pontificate. The beatification
events will be live-streamed at many of the sites, ensuring
worldwide participation.

“Six years have passed since John Paul’s funeral, and the
world of communications has changed greatly, with many more
online opportunities available to the church,” said Jesuit
Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, who was
coordinating several of the Internet efforts.

“Moreover, John Paul II was much loved by the younger
generations who use the new media. He is a figure who adapts
well to the Web, because he left us with a wealth of images
and spoken words that one is happy to see and listen to again
in their original context,” he said.

The Diocese of Rome has also launched a multilingual
beatification website that offers the diocesan-approved
prayer asking for graces of Pope John Paul in 31 languages,
including Chinese, Arabic, Russian and Swahili.

The beatification date was chosen carefully. May 1 is Divine
Mercy Sunday, a day with special significance for Pope John
Paul, who made it a church-wide feast day to be celebrated a
week after Easter. The pope died April 2, 2005, the vigil of
Divine Mercy Sunday.

May 1 is also Europe’s “labor day” holiday, which meant the
beatification events would not disrupt the normal business of
Rome. Many Romans were planning to leave the city for the
weekend, although church leaders said Italians would still be
the biggest national group attending the beatification. Poles
were expected to be the second-largest group, followed by
pilgrims from Spain and the United States.

The Vatican has used the run-up to the beatification as a
teaching moment about the sainthood process, emphasizing that
Pope John Paul will be declared “blessed” not for his
achievements as pope but for the way he lived the Christian
virtues of faith, hope and love.

Church officials have announced that in the Diocese of Rome,
where Pope John Paul served as bishop, and in all the
dioceses of his native Poland, his feast day is to be
inserted automatically into the annual calendar. Oct. 22 was
chosen as the day to remember him because it is the
anniversary of the liturgical inauguration of his papacy in
1978.

Other places can petition the Vatican to insert the Oct. 22
feast day into their liturgical calendar. Likewise, parishes
and churches can be named after “Blessed Pope John Paul” in
Rome and Poland, with other requests considered on a
case-by-case basis.

Throughout the universal church, Catholics will have a year
to celebrate a Mass in thanksgiving for the pope’s
beatification.

The Vatican has published the text of the opening prayer –
formally the “collect” – for his feast day Mass. The English
text reads: “O God, who are rich in mercy and who willed that
the Blessed John Paul II should preside as pope over your
universal church, grant, we pray, that, instructed by his
teaching, we may open our hearts to the saving grace of
Christ, the sole redeemer of mankind. Who lives and reigns.”

Following the beatification ceremonies, Pope John Paul’s
casket will be relocated to the Chapel of St. Sebastian in
the upper level of St. Peter’s Basilica. He had been buried
in the grotto beneath St. Peter’s, but the new resting place
is more easily accessible to the steady stream of pilgrims
who come to see the pope’s tomb.

Not long after Pope John Paul’s death, Pope Benedict set him
on the fast track to beatification by waiving the normal
five-year waiting period for the introduction of his
sainthood cause. Even so, church experts needed years to
review the massive amount of evidence regarding the late
pope, including thousands of pages of writings and speeches.

More than 120 witnesses were interviewed, and studies were
conducted on Pope John Paul’s ministry, the way he handled
suffering and how he faced his death. The Vatican took
special care evaluating the reported miracle in France, and
Vatican officials emphasized that no procedural shortcuts
were taken. The process was completed relatively quickly: six
years and one month from death to beatification is a modern
record in the church.

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