A presumed miracle needed for the
beatification of the late Pope John Paul II reportedly has reached the
final stages of approval.
The miracle -- involving a French nun said to have been cured of
Parkinson's disease -- has been approved by a Vatican medical board and a
group of theologians and is now awaiting judgment from the members of
the Congregation for Saints' Causes, according to Italian journalist
Andrea Tornielli.
If the congregation accepts the healing as a miracle attributable to the
late pope's intercession, then Pope Benedict XVI still would have to
sign a decree formally recognizing it before a beatification ceremony
can be scheduled.
Tornielli, who covers the Vatican for the newspaper Il Giornale, wrote
Jan. 4 that the process is so far advanced that Pope John Paul could be
beatified sometime in 2011.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told Catholic News Service
Jan. 4 that the final step before beatification requires the pope's
approval and that the pope is free to make his own decision on the
matter.
According to Tornielli, at the end of 2010, the presumed miracle passed
the first three stages in a five-step process that involves medical
experts, a medical board, theological consultants, the members of the
congregation and, finally, Pope Benedict.
In 2005, Pope Benedict set Pope John Paul on the fast track to
beatification by waiving the normal five-year waiting period for the
introduction of his sainthood cause.
The initial diocesan phase of the cause was completed in April 2007.
After a team of theological consultants to the Congregation for Saints'
Causes studied the 2,000-page "positio," the document that makes the
case for beatification, Pope Benedict formally decreed in December 2009
that Pope John Paul had heroically lived the Christian virtues and was
venerable.
SIC: CNS/INT'L