Vatican City, Apr 25 (AFP) Late pope John Paul II's beatification on May 1 comes at the end of a complex inquiry by the Vatican that has attributed a miracle to him, putting the pontiff on the path to sainthood.
The procedure was launched soon after John Paul's death on April 2, 2005 amid popular calls from many Catholics for him to be made a saint.
The first step to sainthood is beatification, which confers "blessed" status on lay and clerical figures recognised as remarkable by the Catholic Church.
Under the Church's strict rules on saints, the procedure to determine whether any miracles can be attributed to the person in question is normally not launched until at least five years after their death.
But John Paul himself found a way to speed this up, allowing the popular Mother Teresa to be beatified in 2003 -- just six years after her death.