Your Guide to Papal Beatification

The late Pope John Paul II, who died only six years ago, will move a step farther along the path toward sainthood when the Vatican beatifies him May 1. The campaign for his being declared a saint is being helped by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, and by a French nun who believes the deceased pontiff played a key role in her recovery from Parkinson’s disease. –KA

BBC:

The CCS has interviewed hundreds of persons who knew the late pontiff, and carried out exhaustive enquiries into his reputation for holiness. Pope John Paul II himself created more new Saints and Blesseds that any of his predecessors.

Vatican experts, including Pope Benedict’s own personal physician, have also examined the medical evidence for an allegedly miraculous cure – that of a 49-year-old French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, in 2005 from Parkinson’s Disease, the same malady which afflicted Pope John Paul II in his later years.

Sister Marie claims that she and her fellow nuns prayed for the intercession of Pope John Paul II after his death. Her sudden cure had no logical medical explanation and she later resumed her work as a maternity nurse, the Vatican says.

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