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VATICAN CITY: Up to 200,000 people held a prayer vigil on Saturday night ahead of the beatification of Pope John Paul II and heard a testimonial from a nun who says she was cured after praying to him.
The crowd of mostly young people flocked to the Circus Maximus oval, where ancient Romans ran chariot races, to pray, sing and celebrate as they waited for Sunday's beatification.
"He changed by life," sais Michael Alfs, 40, from Germany. "I don't think the re-unification of Germany would have been possible without him," he said, referring to the pope's role in combating communism in his native Poland, the first country in the former East Bloc to become democratic.
Many in the crowd, estimated by police to be about 200,000 held candles as they heard a testimonial from Sister Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, a French nun who suffered from Parkinson's disease, the same ailment that afflicted the pope for the last 12 years of his life.
The Vatican has deemed that what it calls Normand's otherwise inexplicable cure after she and her fellow nuns prayed to the dead pope was due to John Paul's intercession with God to perform a miracle, thus permitting the beatification to go ahead.
"I was cured on the night between June 2 and June 3, 2005," she told the crowd. "I woke up at four in the morning and felt that something had changed in me," she said, recalling how her ailment disappeared in a matter of hours.
Rome has been caught up in beatification fever. The city is festooned with posters of the pope on buses, taxis and hanging from lamp posts as it awaits one of the largest crowds since his 2005 funeral, when millions came.
LATIN FORMULA
A big crowd is expected at the mass in St Peter's Square on Sunday when John Paul's successor Pope Benedict XVI will pronounce a Latin formula declaring one of the most popular popes in history a "blessed" of the Church.
"The Church does not make saints," the pope's long-time spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, told the crowd at the Circus Maximus on Saturday night. "It just recognises that a person lived a saintly life. John Paul was already a saint."
While many believe John Paul was "a living saint", another miracle will have to be attributed to his intercession after the beatification for him to be declared a saint by the Church.
St Peter's Square, where the beatification takes place on Sunday, is bedecked with portraits of the pope and 27 banners with photos reflecting an event in each year of his pontificate.
Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was at the pope's side for decades as his private secretary, said he was thrilled by the number of young people in Rome for the beatification.
"How marvelous. Look, just as they came on the day he died, this time they came to rejoice over his elevation. He is no longer in the tomb. The tomb has remained empty because he is here again," Dziwisz told Reuters in an interview in the square.
Pope John Paul's coffin was exhumed on Friday from the crypts below St Peter's Basilica and will be placed in front of the main altar. After Sunday's beatification mass, it will remain there and the basilica will remain open until all visitors who want to view it have done so.
It will then be moved to a new crypt under an altar in a side chapel near Michelangelo's statue of the Pieta. The marble slab that covered his first burial place will be sent to Poland.
Some 90 official delegations from around the world, including members of five European royal families and 16 heads of state, will attend the beatification.
One is Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has been widely criticised for human rights abuses in his country. Mugabe is banned from travelling to the European Union, but the Vatican -- a sovereign state -- is not a member of the bloc.
The leader of any country that has diplomatic relations with the Vatican can attend Vatican events.
The crowd of mostly young people flocked to the Circus Maximus oval, where ancient Romans ran chariot races, to pray, sing and celebrate as they waited for Sunday's beatification.
"He changed by life," sais Michael Alfs, 40, from Germany. "I don't think the re-unification of Germany would have been possible without him," he said, referring to the pope's role in combating communism in his native Poland, the first country in the former East Bloc to become democratic.
Many in the crowd, estimated by police to be about 200,000 held candles as they heard a testimonial from Sister Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, a French nun who suffered from Parkinson's disease, the same ailment that afflicted the pope for the last 12 years of his life.
The Vatican has deemed that what it calls Normand's otherwise inexplicable cure after she and her fellow nuns prayed to the dead pope was due to John Paul's intercession with God to perform a miracle, thus permitting the beatification to go ahead.
"I was cured on the night between June 2 and June 3, 2005," she told the crowd. "I woke up at four in the morning and felt that something had changed in me," she said, recalling how her ailment disappeared in a matter of hours.
Rome has been caught up in beatification fever. The city is festooned with posters of the pope on buses, taxis and hanging from lamp posts as it awaits one of the largest crowds since his 2005 funeral, when millions came.
LATIN FORMULA
A big crowd is expected at the mass in St Peter's Square on Sunday when John Paul's successor Pope Benedict XVI will pronounce a Latin formula declaring one of the most popular popes in history a "blessed" of the Church.
"The Church does not make saints," the pope's long-time spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, told the crowd at the Circus Maximus on Saturday night. "It just recognises that a person lived a saintly life. John Paul was already a saint."
While many believe John Paul was "a living saint", another miracle will have to be attributed to his intercession after the beatification for him to be declared a saint by the Church.
St Peter's Square, where the beatification takes place on Sunday, is bedecked with portraits of the pope and 27 banners with photos reflecting an event in each year of his pontificate.
Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was at the pope's side for decades as his private secretary, said he was thrilled by the number of young people in Rome for the beatification.
"How marvelous. Look, just as they came on the day he died, this time they came to rejoice over his elevation. He is no longer in the tomb. The tomb has remained empty because he is here again," Dziwisz told Reuters in an interview in the square.
Pope John Paul's coffin was exhumed on Friday from the crypts below St Peter's Basilica and will be placed in front of the main altar. After Sunday's beatification mass, it will remain there and the basilica will remain open until all visitors who want to view it have done so.
It will then be moved to a new crypt under an altar in a side chapel near Michelangelo's statue of the Pieta. The marble slab that covered his first burial place will be sent to Poland.
Some 90 official delegations from around the world, including members of five European royal families and 16 heads of state, will attend the beatification.
One is Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has been widely criticised for human rights abuses in his country. Mugabe is banned from travelling to the European Union, but the Vatican -- a sovereign state -- is not a member of the bloc.
The leader of any country that has diplomatic relations with the Vatican can attend Vatican events.
