Tens of thousands of faithful braved rain across Poland this morning to fete the Vatican's beatification of Pope John Paul II, still regarded as a moral authority by virtually all Poles six years after his death.

Crowds of faithful clad in raingear massed around huge video screens beaming the beatification mass in St Peter's Square live in the capital Warsaw, the southern city of Krakow where the late pope once served as a cardinal and in his nearby birthplace of Wadowice.

"It's a great joy that my friend with whom I went to school until graduating from high school has been beatified," said 90-year-old Eugeniusz Mroz, a classmate of future pope Karol Wojtyla, at ceremonies in Wadowice which drew several thousand.

In Krakow, an estimated 100,000 faithful braved drizzle and chilly temperatures to offer prayers for the late pontiff at the Shrine of Divine Mercy, in the city's suburb of Lagiewniki.

A phial of John Paul II's blood was placed in a reliquary at the shrine, a rare relic of the pontiff whom the Vatican has fast-tracked for sainthood.

In the capital Warsaw, faithful huddling under umbrellas massed in front of a huge video screen on the city's massive central Pilsudski Square, where in 1979 the freshly elected pope delivered a landmark sermon behind the Iron Curtain urging his countrymen "be not afraid, change the face of the Earth."

Historians regard this event as the catalyst for Poland's freedom-fighting Solidarity trade union, which drew some 10 million members by 1980, prompting the communist regime to impose the martial law crackdown in December 1981.

The union, the first and only of its kind in the entire Soviet bloc, re-emerged in 1989 to negotiate a bloodless end to communism in Poland, making the first step toward democracy behind the Iron Curtain.

"It's worth the effort to come here to experience this together with others instead of just watching it on TV," 20-year-old Anna told AFP as she clutched an umbrella.

Some 80,000 Poles were reported to be among the more than a million pilgrims attending the beatification mass in St Peter's Square.

Many Poles displayed portraits of the late pope in their windows and hung yellow-and-white Vatican flags alongside Polish flags in the national colours of the red-and-white from balconies.

Tens of thousands were also expected to attend evening open-air concerts marking the beatification, the penultimate step to sainthood for John Paul.

Six years after his death, some 93 percent of Poles regard the late pope as a moral authority, while 95 percent believe his beatification is an "important event" for Poland, according to a recent survey by the independent Warsaw-based CBOS pollsters.

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