Reading a greeting in Polish to pilgrims at today’s general audience, Benedict XVI expressed his joy, together with that of Poland, over “the opening last week of the process for beatification of the Servant of God, our beloved Pope John Paul II.”
“I commend to your prayers the development of this cause,” he said.
The solemn opening session of the cause for beatification took place June 28 in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, under the presidency of Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar of the Diocese of Rome.
Monsignor Slawomir Oder, postulator of the cause, has begun to collect John Paul II’s unpublished writings as well as testimonies about his holiness of life.
The official Web page of the cause for beatification, www.JohnPaulIIBeatification.org, received 67,000 visitors during its first week.
Monsignor Oder said that he receives hundreds of e-mail messages at: Postulazione.GiovanniPaoloII@VicariatusUrbis.org.
