Pope John Paul II moving closer to sainthood

VATICAN CITY - During Pope John Paul II's 2005 funeral, crowds at the Vatican shouted for him to be made a saint immediately. "Santo subito!" they chanted for one of the most important and beloved pontiffs in history.

His successor heard their call. On Friday, in the fastest process on record, Pope Benedict XVI set May 1 as the date for John Paul's beatification - a key step toward Catholicism's highest honor.

He set the date after declaring that a French nun's recovery from Parkinson's disease was the miracle needed for John Paul to be beatified. A second miracle is needed to be canonized a saint.

Benedict himself will preside at the May 1 ceremony that will draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Rome for a precedent-setting Mass: Never before has a pope beatified his immediate predecessor.

"We have waited a long time and this is a great day for us," said Mayor Ewa Filipiak of John Paul's hometown of Wadowice, where the faithful lit candles Friday and prayed at a chapel in the town church dedicated to John Paul.

The beatification will be the fastest on record, coming a little more than six years after his death and beating out Mother Teresa's then-record beatification in 2003 by a few days.

It is not without controversy, however. While John Paul himself was never accused of improprieties, he has long been accused of responding slowly when the Catholic church sex abuse scandal erupted in the United States in 2002. Many of the thousands of cases that emerged last year involved crimes and cover-ups during his 26-year papacy.

Critics fault John Paul's overriding concern with preserving the rights of accused priests, often at the expense of victims. His concern was formed in part by his experiences in communist-controlled Poland, where priests were often accused of trumped-up charges.

The most damaging case linked to John Paul involved the Rev. Marciel Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative order beloved by the late pope.

Rape allegations against Maciel were made to the Vatican in the 1990s but little was done. Only after Benedict became pope was Maciel sanctioned in 2006. He died two years later.

The beatification Benedict approved was that the cure of the French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, was a miracle due to John Paul's intercession.

The nun has said she felt reborn when she woke up, cured, two months after John Paul II died. She and her fellow Little Sisters of Catholic Maternity Wards had prayed to John Paul.