Poles today remembered "their" pope, John Paul II, whom many in this deeply Catholic country want to see placed firmly on the fast-track to sainthood."Santo subito," "Our saint," "To us, he is already a saint," read the front-page headlines in major national dailies on the second anniversary of the Polish-born pontiff's death.
Some of the newspapers cited Catholic bishops as saying John Paul II, the first pope from the former communist bloc, could be beatified - the first step on the road to sainthood - within the next year.
The new archbishop of Warsaw, Kazimierz Nycz, who took up office yesterday, hailed the late pope as a living saint, but urged Poles to put more effort into learning from his teachings than pushing for his swift canonization.
"He was a saint in flesh and blood. But let us not put him on too high a pedestal, for then we would be unable to follow his example," Nycz said.
Around Poland this weekend, masses were held to pray for the beatification of John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla in the southern Polish town of Wadowice May 18, 1920.
Concerts were staged, along with exhibitions and shows based on the prolific writings of the pope, who died April 2, 2005, at 9:37 pm in his private rooms in the Vatican.
The precise hour of John Paul II's death has become a magical hour in Poland, and at 9:37 pm Monday, bells will toll around the country in his memory.
Overnight Sunday, around 1,000 youngsters gathered at Saint Anne's church in Warsaw for a prayer vigil.
"The death of John Paul II united us two years ago. Today, we are in particular need of that unity, which is why I am here," Piotr Sobczynski, a student at Warsaw Polytechnic, said.
Hundreds of votive candles flickered in the balmy spring air outside the church, where one of the outer walls was adorned with a giant portrait of the late pope.
In the southern city of Krakow, where Wojtyla spent most of his adult life and was archbishop before his surprise election as pope in October 1978, the John Paul II cultural center mounted an exhibition of 110 photographs taken by AFP photographers during his numerous pilgrimages around the world.
An open-air concert was due to be staged at Krakow's historic market square Monday evening, and at 9:37 pm, a crowd was expected to gather outside the window at the archbishop's palace, from which the late pope used to hold impromptu conversations with the faithful.
Warsaw will remember Poland's pope with a huge cross formed out of hundreds of votive candles in Pilsudski Square, the site where John Paul II celebrated mass before a million people on his first visit as pope to his native Poland in June 1979, when the central European country was still under communist rule.
In that mass, the pope spoke the words that many say gave Solidarity - the first free trade union in the communist bloc, founded in 1980 - the will to bring down communism. "Let the Spirit descend and renew the face of this land," he said.
A poll published today showed that 61 percent of Poles want John Paul II to be canonized without going through the usual first step of beatification.
"Canon law depends on the supreme legislator, the pope," said Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, head of a special tribunal involved in the beatification process of John Paul II, leaving the door open to the possibility of the late pontiff being canonized without first being beatified.
"The process depends on Benedict XVI, not only in terms of when to announce his decision but also in terms of the possibility of shortening the process," Pieronek said
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