VATICAN CITY — Roman Catholic faithful filled St. Peter’s Square on Monday in an outpouring of thanks for the fast beatification of John Paul II, a joyous celebration of the much-loved late pontiff.
“We thank the Lord for having given us a saint like himself,” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s No. 2, said to a cheering crowd estimated by the Vatican at 60,000, more than half of them from John Paul’s native Poland.
The beatification Sunday, the fastest in modern history, came six years after John Paul’s 2005 funeral drew calls of “Santo subito!” or “Sainthood immediately!”
Sunday’s event drew 1.5 million people from across the globe, one of the largest Vatican celebrations ever and a testament to the popularity of the globe-trotting and charismatic pope.
The Mass on Monday began with a procession in St. Peter’s Square of bishops and cardinals in gold and white vestments. They walked beneath a large photo of a youthful John Paul that was unveiled in an emotional moment during the beatification and now hangs from the loggia of the basilica.
One cleric carried aloft a relic, a vial of blood taken from John Paul for medical tests shortly before his death. A key feature of beatification ceremonies, the relic will be available for the faithful to venerate.
Pope John Paul II’s longtime secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, thanked Pope Benedict XVI for responding to the call of the faithful for the speedy beatification.
In his homily, Bertone recalled how John Paul, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, served as a model of saintly life when he lost “his physical strength, his expressiveness, the ability to move, even his speech.”
The Vatican said more than 250,000 people paid their respects between Sunday’s beatification Mass and 3 a.m. Monday, when the basilica was closed.
The pope had been buried in the grottoes underneath the church, but his closed casket was brought to the church’s center aisle ahead of the beatification.
On Monday evening, in a private ceremony, the late pope’s remains were moved to a new resting place under the altar of St. Sebastian’s chapel in the basilica near Michelangelo’s famed “Pieta” marble sculpture, the Vatican said.
