Italian postage stamp, Vatican exhibit on Pope John Paul

(April 29, 2011) The Italian Post on Friday issued a postage stamp commemorating Pope John Paul’s upcoming beatification on Sunday. The € 0.60 stamp features a portrait of the late pope shot by Polish-born photographer Grzegorz Galazka during the late pontiff’s annual visit to the statue of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Rome on December 8, 1998. Meanwhile The Vatican has made St. Peter’s Square an exhibition on Pope John Paul decorating it with a huge photograph of the pope with his pastoral staff as well as with photographs from each year of his pontificate. There is however the main exhibit in the Carlo Magno Hall of St. Peter's Square where visitors can enter for free until July 24. The exhibit, which is collaboration between the Vatican and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, includes artefacts from the museum set up in Pope John Paul’s family home in Wadowice, Poland, like family photographs, a report card and the uniform he wore when he worked at the Solvay quarry and factory. Skis, boots and poles he used in the 1960s and a canoe from about the same time also are on display, along with prayer books and his black priest's cassock.