The late pope John Paul II moved a big step closer to sainthood today when his successor approved a decree attributing a miracle to him and announced that he will be beatified on May 1st.
The ceremony in St Peter's Square marking the last step before sainthood is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people, harkening back to the funeral of the charismatic pope in 2005, one of the biggest media events of the new century.
His coffin will be moved beforehand from its present location in the Vatican crypts and placed under an altar in a chapel in St Peter's Basilica so more people can pay homage.
John Paul's 27-year papacy was one of the most historic and tumultuous of modern times. During his pontificate, communism collapsed across eastern Europe, starting in his native Poland.
Church officials have said the miracle attributed to the intercession of John Paul with God concerned Sister Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, a 49-year-old French nun diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, from which the pope himself had suffered.
She said her illness inexplicably disappeared two months after his death when she and her fellow nuns prayed to him.
Church-appointed doctors concluded that there was no medical explanation for the healing of the nun, although last year there were some doubts about the validity of the miracle.
A further miracle occurring after the beatification ceremony - which confers the title "Blessed" on John Paul – must be approved before he can be canonised, or made a saint.
In May 2005, a month after his death, Pope Benedict put John Paul on the fast track by dispensing with Church rules that normally impose a five-year waiting period after a candidate's death before the procedure that leads to sainthood can start.
The period between his death and beatification is one of the shortest on record in Church history.
Reuters