As captivating in death as he was in life
Perhaps more than any other pope in history he lived his uncompromising faith in the public gaze and challenged Catholics and non-Catholics alike to take up the gauntlet of building a world based on what he described as the civilisation of love.
His beatification in Rome just six years after his death marks another milestone on a remarkable life journey from repression under Nazi and communist totalitarianism in his native Poland to becoming one the best-known figures in the world.
