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Rome, Italy, Jan 31, 2011 / 02:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Rome is already bracing for the impact of the many pilgrims who will converge on St. Peter's for the May 1 beatification of Pope John Paul II.Sleeping space in religious communities across the city - around 15,000 beds - was booked up within a day of the Jan. 14 announcement. The Domus Aurelia hotel run by the Emmanuel Community has been reserved "since literally two minutes after the announcement," said Lorenzo Amico, who was working the hotel desk at the time. The hotel is located a short way from St....

On April 2, 2005 at 9:37 p.m. the Venerable Pope John Paul II died. In April of 2009 his beloved successor, Pope Benedict XVI, told Pilgrims gathered in Rome "With you, I pray for the gift of beatification". That prayer has been answered. Friday, January 14, 2011 the Holy See released the "Decree for the Beatification of the Servant of God John Paul II". ...The choice of the Feast of Divine Mercy, May 1, 2011 is not accidental. He had a deep devotion to his fellow Pole Sr. Faustina Kowalska and to the Divine Mercy devotion identified with her. ...Pope...

Worcester's Deacon Sullivan shares healing story Worcester, Mass., Dec 5, 2010 / 01:08 pm (CNA). - St. Paul Society dinner-goers in Worcester, Mass. got a bit closer to Blessed John Henry Newman last month. Not only were the 90 people blessed by the diocese's Bishop Robert J. McManus using a relic of Cardinal Newman, but they were blessed by the presence of Deacon Jack Sullivan whose healing led to Cardinal Newman’s beatification this past September. Msgr. Thomas J. Sullivan, chancellor and director of the Office of Stewardship and Development, introduced Deacon Sullivan, recalling that the last time they were...

The Catholic lay Focolare movement will soon have its first beatified member. Chiara Badano, who died just 20 years ago while still a teenager, will be beatified Sept. 25 at the shrine of the Virgin of "Divine Love" (Rome - Castel di Leva) chaired by Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.Who is Chiara Luce? Let us get to know more about her..... Sometimes we’d prefer that our lives be a different story than the one God seems to be writing.  In our fragile existence it doesn’t take much to turn a romance into a...

Chiara "Luce" Badano Rome, Italy, Sep 23, 2010 / 11:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Chiara "Luce" Badano, who showed great faith during her short life, will be beatified this weekend. Her parents and thousands of young people from Italy and across the globe are expected in Rome to celebrate her life and holiness.Chiara was born in the town of Sassello, Italy in 1971. Brought up Catholic, she later became a member of the Focolare movement and, although stricken by bone cancer which paralyzed her legs and later took her life, lived the Gospel message, exuding a love for God and...

On the UK Trip "The Old Nations of Europe Have a Christian Soul" VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today at the general audience in St. Peter's Square. * * * Dear Brothers and Sisters, Today I would like to speak about my apostolic journey to the United Kingdom, which God enabled me to carry out over the past few days. It was an official visit and, at the same time, a pilgrimage to the heart of the history and the present of a people rich in culture and faith,...

Lisbon, Portugal, May 26, 2010 / 05:56 pm (CNA).- In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, revealed a series of previously unpublished details about the beatification of the shepherd children of Fatima, such as the creation of a commission which concluded that the two children exercised heroic virtues. Cardinal Martins said the beatification of Jacinta and Francisco Marto, which took place 10 years ago this May, was “a historic event because they were the first children to be raised to the altars who...

Venerable John Paul II La Paz, Bolivia, Feb 23, 2010 / 12:53 pm (CNA).- Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was John Paul II’s personal secretary for 40 years, told participants at a Colombian conference that the late-Pope's beatification process “is practically finished.” In Colombia, where Cardinal Dziwisz traveled to participate in a conference on the legacy of John Paul II, the cardinal remarked that the beatification process of the pilgrim Pope “is practically finished.”“In order for the beatification to take place, it is important that the Church recognizes a miracle in which he has interceded. There is...

Many readers will rejoice - fittingly on this Gaudete Sunday - to learn that last Thursday, 10 December 2009, the Cause of Beatification of the Servant of God Zita, last Empress of Austria and wife of Blessed Emperor Charles, was solemnly opened by His Excellency Msgr. Yves Le Saux, Bishop of Le Mans, France. The process was opened in Le Mans, and not in the Swiss diocese of Chur, where the Empress died 20 years ago in 1989 in Zizers, with the consent of Msgr. Huonder, the Bishop of Chur, and the permission of the Congregation for the Causes of...

Spare Me The Beatification of Teddy Kennedy By Adrian Michaels August 26th, 2009 I know it’s August but the television has been wall-to-wall Teddy Kennedy today. And I live in the UK. I can’t imagine how tiring the coverage must be in the States. The death of a longstanding public servant is certainly a moment worth noting. The senator was also, I grant, part of a very famous family. Some in Britain might miss that the Kennedys are as close to royalty as America gets. But Teddy Kennedy is not deserving of these tearful invocations to saintliness. He was a...

The cause for beatification of Pope John Paul II has moved a step forward, according to a report by Andrea Tornielli of the Italian daily newspaper Il Giornale. Tornielli-- who has accurately predicted several recent developments inside the Vatican-- says that theological consultors working with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints have delivered a positive verdict on the positio, the full case in favor of a pronouncement that the life of John Paul II was marked by "heroic virtue." The positio will now be forwarded to the full Congregation for the Causes of Saints for a vote later this...

Pope John Paul II’s closest aide is strongly criticizing Dr. Wanda Poltawska over her decision to publish five decades’ worth of private correspondence with the late Pontiff. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow says that Dr. Poltawska-- a psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor-- is claiming “a special relationship where none existed” and that many others corresponded privately with Pope John Paul. Father Adam Boniecki, former editor of the Polish edition of L’Osservatore Romano, countered that Pope John Paul and Dr. Poltawska had a strong relationship, like that of a brother and sister-- akin to that of St. Francis de Sales and...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The beatification of Pope John Paul II may be delayed as the Vatican seeks more documentation regarding his almost 27 years as pope, Italian newspapers reported in late May. According to the newspaper La Stampa, the chief holdup regards hundreds of letters he wrote before and after his election to Wanda Poltawska, a longtime friend and adviser to the pope. Meanwhile, the newspaper Il Giornale, reported that a commission of theologians meeting in mid-May decided the information contained in the official "positio," or position paper, was not complete enough. In particular, the newspaper cited the fact...

Archbishop Fulton Sheen Peoria, Ill., Apr 24, 2009 / 03:46 am (CNA).- The famous Catholic evangelist Archbishop Fulton Sheen's reputation for holiness and his impact on Catholics and non-Catholics alike has led to his cause for beatification being opened. Bill Engelbrecht, a member of the Archbishop Sheen Foundation’s board of directors, told CNA recently that the cause is progressing “quite well.”The foundation, Engelbrecht explained, is kept informed of the beatification cause’s progress in Rome, and it is “on track.” “The process is lengthy and it is undetermined. It can take from a few years to a few hundred years. It’s...

A forensic archaeologist has raised fresh questions over why no remains were found in the grave of an English cardinal in line to become a saint.It comes just days before artefacts owned by Cardinal John Henry Newman go on display ahead of his possible beatification.Tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of Birmingham in 1890 as Cardinal John Henry Newman's body was carried eight miles to its final resting place. Some 118 years later the Vatican ordered his remains be dug up. Roman Catholic leaders in Birmingham were asked to exhume his body by the Vatican as part of...

Group says pope will weigh delay of Pius's beatification By Rachel Donadio VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI told Jewish leaders on Thursday that he was "seriously considering" delaying the beatification of Pius XII, the pope during World War II, until the archives of his papacy had been opened, a participant at the meeting said. But the pope's spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Benedict's response was not a "public commitment," according to The Associated Press. "You shouldn't read this response for beyond what it is," Father Lombardi said. "It is a polite, serious response. He always takes seriously what he...

Vatican fumes at Israeli minister's remarks on Nazi-era pope By Adi Schwartz, Haaretz Correspondent and Staff Vatican officials are furious over Minister Isaac Herzog's statement in Thursday's Haaretz that the planned beatification of Pope Pius XII, who headed the Catholic Church during the Holocaust, is "unacceptable." Cardinal Andrea Lanza di Montezemolo told the Italian paper Corriere della Serra yesterday that "Israel's interference in the matter of Pius XII must stop. We've had it with this interference. Outside opinions are liable to disrupt [the process], and they look like an attempt to force Pope Benedict XVI to make a decision. The...

Saintly Role Models for Parents: St. Therese’s Parents to be Beatified August 13th, 2008 by Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote of her parents, “God gave me a father and mother more worthy of Heaven than of earth.” Over a century later, the Catholic Church will officially confirm what St. Thérèse already knew. On July 11, 2008, it was announced that Louis and Zelie (Guerin) Martin would be beatified on Mission Sunday, October 19, 2008. They will become the first married couple to be beatified in the history of the Church. As such, they are saintly role models for married...

Maria Mercedes with her mother Santiago, Aug 1, 2008 / 10:23 am (CNA).- Maria Mercedes Correa Maldonado, a 23 year-old Chilean woman who in explicably “woke up” from cerebral palsy when she was 18, is now pregnant, in what could be the second miracle attributed to Italian seminarian Nicola D’Onofrio (1943-1964), whose cause of beatification is open in the Diocese of Rome.Maria Mercedes suffered from grave cerebral palsy but on a March afternoon on 2003, after her mother had incessantly prayed to the Italian seminarian for his intercession, she woke up in her hospital bed in Puataendo, sat up...

LONDON (CNS) -- Catholic officials have applied for permission to exhume the body of a 19th-century cardinal whose cause for sainthood is expected to soon progress to beatification. They want to transfer the remains of Cardinal John Henry Newman from a grave in a small cemetery in the suburbs of Birmingham, England, to a marble sarcophagus in a church in the city where they can be venerated by pilgrims. A July 14 statement said that the Archdiocese of Birmingham was now in direct contact with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, to obtain the necessary...