Hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics are gathering in Rome for a ceremony on Sunday that will put on the path to sainthood John Paul II – the late Pope who revolutionised the image of the Church.
John Paul will be declared “blessed” in a solemn ritual in Saint Peter’s basilica just six years after the end of his 27-year Pontificate – a process that usually takes many years and includes the confirmation of a miracle.
The beatification Mass is to be attended by numerous political and religious leaders and royalty and will be preceded on the eve by a major religious ceremony in the Circus Maximus – a giant ancient arena in central Rome.
Many churches in Rome will remain open all night for pilgrim prayers. The faithful will be allowed to file past John Paul’s coffin, which has been in a crypt beneath the Vatican since his death, before he is buried in the basilica near Michelangelo’s famous Pieta statue.
The beatification coincides with Labour Day – a happy coincidence for a Pope whose influential support for the Solidarity trade union in his native Poland famously helped defeat Soviet power in that country in the 1980s.
Hundreds of extra trains, buses and planes have been laid on to ferry pilgrims to the Eternal City. The biggest groups are expected to arrive from France, Poland, Spain and other predominantly Catholic countries.
But the numbers are far lower than the more than two million that the Vatican said it expected earlier in the year. The economic crisis, the earthquake in Japan and the war in Libya have cut numbers, tour operators say.
The number of pilgrims from outside Rome is now expected at less than 300,000.
The Holy See is hoping the celebration will help the Church burnish its image – badly damaged by a multitude of paedophile priest scandals.
With numerous planned television broadcasts, the ceremonies will evoke some of the famous images of the Pope from the other side of the Iron Curtain.
Vigorous and passionate when he was elected in 1978, he held on stoically despite suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease until his death in 2005.
It will also be a time for the Church to re-affirm some of the main messages of his Pontificate: Strict rigour on family values, a major emphasis on peace and human rights and a strong condemnation of unfettered capitalism.
When Karol Wojtyla died at the end of a prolonged agony that played out in front of the television cameras, Rome filled for a week with unprecedented crowds of faithful chanting Santo Subito! (Sainthood Now!)
The beatification process began shortly after his death and was completed with the confirmation of the miraculous healing of a French nun, Marie Simon-Pierre, who like the Pope was also afflicted by Parkinson’s.
The miracle was attributed to John Paul’s intercession. To achieve sainthood for John Paul, the Vatican needs to attribute a second miracle to him.
The Holy See has received several thousand claims of miracles – some of them serious, others less so. Sainthood could come relatively soon. The Polish Pope does however have his detractors, who criticise the Pontiff for failing to reach out to Catholic progressives and for turning a blind eye to the glaring problem of child abusers in the priesthood. But his supporters say the Pope’s merits outweigh his failings.
One of his main backers has been the current Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, who was a close advisor to Pope John Paul for many years.
Pope Benedict has paid homage to John Paul as “a great witness of God, filled with the Holy Spirit”. Beset by “shameful mistakes”, he said, the Catholic Church needed such “luminous examples”.