Pope John Paul’s coffin exhumed ahead of beatification ceremony

POPE John Paul’s coffin has been exhumed ahead of his beatification as tens of thousands of people began arriving in Rome for one of the biggest events since his funeral in 2005.

The Vatican said the coffin was removed from the crypts below St Peter’s Basilica while top Vatican officials and some of the late pope’s closest aides looked on and prayed.

Those present at the ceremony included Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, his personal secretary and right- hand man for decades, and the Polish nuns who ran the papal household for 27 years.

The wooden coffin will be placed in front of the main altar of St Peter’s Basilica. After tomorrow’s beatification Mass, it will remain in that spot 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.

Meanwhile, Rome, which has caught beatification fever is festooned with posters of the pope.

Large television towers are being erected along Via Della Conciliazione, the road leading to the Vatican.

Several hundred thousand people are expected at the Mass in St Peter’s Square tomorrow when Pope Benedict XVI will pronounce a Latin formula declaring one of the most popular popes in history a “blessed” of the Church.

At least 16 heads of state and 87 official delegations from around the world will attend the beatification, the last step before sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican has deemed that the otherwise inexplicable cure of a French nun, Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was due to John Paul’s intercession thus permitting the beatification to go ahead.

Another miracle will have to be attributed to John Paul’s intercession after the beatification for him to be declared a saint.

Beatification-related activities begin tonight in Circus Maximus, the sprawling oval used by the ancient Romans for chariot races.

An all-night prayer vigil will be held in the oval, during which Normand, Dziwisz and Joaquin Navarro- Valls, the pope’s long-time spokesman, will describe their experiences with him.

Abuse claims

- A GROUP of 70 people claiming to be sexual abuse victims of clergy will take Vatican and Belgian church officials to court, claiming they offered them insufficient protection from paedophile priests.

Lawyer Walter Van Steenbrugge said yesterday he will lodge the complaint in about two weeks. He said religious officials, including the pope, had failed to take proper action to prevent such abuse.

Picture: The coffin of the late Pope John Paul II is moved to be transferred before the tomb of St Peter, in the Vatican grotto, ahead of the beatification ceremony scheduled for tomorrow. Picture: AP Photo/L’Osservatore Romano