Pope John Paul, looking tired and speaking with difficulty, put five Catholics on the road to sainthood yesterday, including the 19th century German mystic nun who inspired Mel Gibson's film on Christ's passion.
At the same ceremony in St Peter's Square, he beatified Austria's last emperor, Karl I. Some of Europe's current crowned heads and members of Italy's ex monarchy attended.
As has become customary, the Pope, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, did not read all the Mass and what he did read was hard to understand. A cardinal celebrated part of the Mass while the Pope sat on a throne on the sidelines.
Aides read part of his sermon in French, German and Spanish for the 84-year-old Roman Catholic leader before some 25,000 people gathered before Christendom's largest church.
The most controversial of the five new beatified - the last step before sainthood - was Anne Catherine Emmerick, a sickly German mystic nun who lived from 1774 to 1824 and has been called 'Mel's Muse'.
Gibson used her book, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for inspiration in some of the most grisly details of the hit film to complement the gospel accounts.
Blessed Emmerick, who is said to have had the bleeding wounds of Christ and to have survived long periods without eating, became a nun and her visions of Christ's passion and death were written down by poet Clemens Brentano and used in Gibson's film. The episode where Mary mops up her son's blood after his sadistic scourging came from Blessed Emmerick as did the hooded devil inciting Jews as they demanded Christ's crucifixion or following him as he carried his cross.
Some Jewish leaders condemned Gibson's film, saying it would spur new forms of visceral anti-Semitism. They now fear that moving Blessed Emmerick closer to the glories of the altars, as sainthood is known, will only make matters worse.
The Vatican has rejected the charges and even some members of the Jewish community say they are exaggerated since Mr Brentano probably embellished Blessed Emmerick's accounts.
In the part of his homily read for him in German, the Pope did not mention Blessed Emmerick's book, which has found a new readership among today's traditionalist Catholics. But he praised her pious character and concern for the poor.
Blessed Emmerick was one of nine children born to poor farmers. The other controversial figure beatified yesterday was born in a castle and ruled a large swath of central Europe.
Critics have said the beatification of Karl I, last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was wrong because his army used poison gas during World War One. Some have lampooned him as "the patron saint of losers" because the empire then broke up.
Blessed Karl mounted the throne in 1916 and made futile efforts the next year for peace talks with France and died in exile in 1922.
The Pope praised Blessed Karl as a man who sought peace and was guided by his Christian faith in his political decisions.