Blessed Pope John Paul II...to be

Rocco over at Whispers in the Loggia is reporting that Pope John Paul II will be beatified, perhaps as early as October! The last step is for Pope Benedict XVI to accept the findings and that will be that!

I remember there was speculation that Benedict would bypass the entire process and declare John Paul a saint at World Youth Day in 2005. I was at that event and as we listened to his homily it sounded like he was going to do it. I kept on looking at my friend's Bill and Andrew an we were all thinking the same thing. Imagine if he did that? The place would have erupted. Alas.

Anyway, see the story here but below is a taste:

Thanks in part to the waiving of the traditional "five-year rule" to open the cause on the part of the then newly-elected Benedict XVI, the process bringing the church's greatest saintmaker in history to the penultimate step to sainthood in his own right has reached the milestone with a speed matched by but one other figure: Mother Teresa of Calcutta -- of course, celebrated in life as a saint -- who was raised to the altars by John Paul six years after her 1997 death, but whose required miracle for canonization remains pending.