Pilgrims make long, arduous trips to fete John Paul II

For Janusc Skibinski, there was only one place to be on the day the late Pope John Paul took the last step before sainthood.

The Polish customs agent drove his family 29 hours from their hometown on the border with Belarus and queued with hundreds of thousands of people through the night so he could make it into St Peter's Square for the beatification of Poland's most famous native son.

Clutching a red-and-white Polish flag, he was among tens of thousands of devotees from Poland, flanked by pilgrims from all over the world in the biggest crowd in the Vatican since John Paul's funeral six years ago.

"He was our beloved pope. He always knew how to lead and be our guide, he taught us how to live and he taught us how to love," said Skibinski, 40, waiting with his wife and two children for stewards to allow them to move into the square.

"We were at the funeral and we just had to be here to see him beatified," he said.

By the time the weary but happy Skibinskis made it into the square, more than a million people had gathered in the area around the Vatican.

At the mass, John Paul's successor Pope Benedict pronounced a Latin formula proclaiming one of the most popular popes in history a "blessed" of the Church, before a tapestry showing the late pope smiling was unveiled to the applauding crowds.

"It's right to be here, it's a duty," said Italian pensioner Renzo Rizzi, who travelled from the northern city of Milan and  queued since the early hours to guarantee his spot.

The square in front of the biggest church in Christendom was filled to the brim for the ceremony, while crowds packed into the surrounding area, where many had camped out all night.

"He had the courage to bring the world into the third millennium, and to help topple communism," said 18-year-old Italian student Nicola Pigna.

In the early 1980s, John Paul was a staunch supporter of the Solidarnosc free trade union, which overcame government attempts to crush it and was a key player in the formation of the first democratic government in the former Soviet bloc.

The pope was beatified on the day the Church celebrates the movable Feast of Divine Mercy, which this year happens to fall on May 1, the most important feast in the communist world.

The coincidence is ironic, given that many believe the pope played such a significant role in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989.

"Sainthood now!" read one banner waving In the square, along with national flags from as far a field as Cuba, Mexico, Canada and Australia.

The sign was reminiscent of those held up at John Paul's funeral in 2005.

A cheer went up when a group of Poles released a large banner reading "Thank You, God" held aloft by balloons.

A special place was reserved for sister Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, a French nun who suffered from Parkinson's disease but whose inexplicable cure has been attributed to John Paul's intercession with God to perform a miracle, thus permitting the beatification to go ahead.

During the service she and another nun carried a silver reliquary containing a vial of John Paul's blood, which was drawn from him during medical tests in the last days of his life in case he needed a transfusion.

The Vatican will have to attribute another miracle to John Paul's intercession after beatification in order for him to be declared a saint.

"Who knows if he will become a saint, but I know he was a holy man," said Mila Calimquim, 66, a retired nurse from California who hoped to see the late pope's coffin, which was exhumed from the crypts of St Peter's Basilica.

The coffin will be placed in front of the main altar. After the beatification mass, it will remain there and the basilica will remain open until all visitors who want to view it have done so.