Pope John Paul II to be beatified on May 1

(January 14, 2011) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday approved a miracle accredited to the intercession of his predecessor Pope John Paul II clearing him for his beatification. Pope Benedict will preside over the beatification ceremony in the Vatican on May 1. Beatification, by which a person is declared Blessed, is the penultimate phase in the long and rigorous process of enquiry into a person’s holiness and authenticity of Catholic belief and teaching, before another miracle is required for final sainthood. The miracle attributed to Pope John Paul’s intercession is that of the scientifically unexplained healing of a 48-year-old French nun, Sr. Marie Simon Pierre of Parkinson's disease after she prayed to the Polish-born pontiff soon after he died in 2005. In an interview to Vatican Radio, Cardinal Angelo Amato, the Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints admitted that the cause of Pope John Paul had been put on fast-track with two advantages. Firstly, Pope Benedict waived the stipulated five-year waiting period before beginning the cause of beatification and canonization. Secondly, his case jumped the queue without having to wait behind others. “Nevertheless,” the cardinal stressed, “there has been no let up whatsoever with regard to the rigors and thoroughness in the process.” His beatification comes 6 years after his death. The May 1 beatification is Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast that Pope John Paul instituted in 2001, assigning it to the Sunday after Easter. He was born Karol Woytyla, in Wadowice (Poland) on 18 May, 1920, and died, aged 84, in Rome on Saturday, April 2, 2005, the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday that year. Besides the miracle of Pope John Paul, Pope Benedict also approved two other miracles, a martyrdom and five heroic virtues. Among them is the miracle attributed to an Italian layman Giuseppe Toniolo, a father of a family and economics professor of Pisa Univeristy. Another miracle has been attributed to Italian nun, Mother Antonia Maria Verna, foundress of the Institute of Charity of the Immaculate Conception of Ivrea. Both Toniolo and Mother Verna will be beatified at a future date. The martyrdom is that of 5 Bosnian nuns of the Daughters of Divine Charity, who were brutally murdered for their faith. Among the five whose heroic virtues have been cleared is the founder of the Salvatorian congregation, Fr. Francis Mary of the Cross Jordan.