NEARLY 5,000 Irish people are in Rome this weekend to attend the beatification of Brother Edmund Rice, founder of the Christian Brothers and the Presentation Brothers.
They will join another 2 000 who have come from Christian Brothers schools and communities in six continents.
Also being beatified at the same time are 13 19th-century Polish martyrs, and the Spanish and Ukrainian founders of female religious orders.
Beatification is the major step towards being declared a saint. Following it, candidates need only one more miracle though their intercession before canonisation. Large political and ecclesiastical contingents are travelling from Ireland.
The Minister for Education, Ms Breathnach, will lead a 12-strong all-party Oireachtas delegation, which includes the Minister for Defence, Mr Barrett, Minister of State, Mr Brian O'Shea, and the Fianna Fail deputy leader Ms Mary O'Rourke. Every Fianna Fail Taoiseach, from Eamon de Valera to Albert Reynolds, has been a Christian Brothers pupil.
The lord mayors of Dublin and Cork, and the mayors of Limerick, Kilkenny and Waterford will also travel.
The parliamentarians' trip will be funded by the taxpayer. It was the Taoiseach who decided to send an all-party delegation, and initially he believed special Government funding would have to be provided.
In the event, an Oireachtas spokesman said this week, the money was found from Oireachtas funds originally allocated for other purposes.
The 23 members of the Hierarchy travelling to Rome will be led by Cardinal Daly; the new Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Sean Brady; and the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell.
People have been collecting testimonies for the beatification of Edmund Rice since 1911. His "cause" was officially launched in Dublin in 1961, although it was not transferred to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome until 1979.
In 1993 Pope John Paul II declared Edmund Rice "venerable" and two years later approved the miracle, the curing of a young Newry man, Kevin Ellison, who was thought to have had only 48 hours to live, which was attributed to Rice's intercession.
The high point of this weekend's ceremonies will be the beatification Mass in St Peter's Square tomorrow morning, presided over by Pope John Paul II. This will be broadcast live on RTE 1 at 9 a.m.
This afternoon, in the audience hall of the Vatican, there will be a celebration of music, song and dance from the various countries where the Christian Brothers are represented, from Ireland to South Africa.
Tomorrow afternoon there will be a "Rice Rave" for "heavy metal lovers", according to the public relations firm handling the beatification events, Fleishman Hillard Saunders.
RTE's Would You Believe programme will broadcast a special documentary on Edmund Rice at 7 p.m. tomorrow, which will include an interview with the only Christian Brothers novice at present in training in Ireland.
There are currently 1,862 Christian Brothers around the world, 600 of whom are in Ireland. The Christian Brothers and the Presentation Brothers run 164 primary and secondary schools in Ireland.