Pope John Paul II will be named a saint this year along with the reform-minded Pope John XXIII, the Vatican said yesterday.
Pope Francis gave final approvals yesterday and asserted his authority by taking the rare step of waiving the requirement that a second confirmed miracle was necessary for John XXIII.
No date was set for the twin canonization ceremonies, but Italian media reported the likely date would be Dec. 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
The elevation of John Paul was widely expected after a church commission, the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, ruled this week that he be credited with the otherwise inexplicable recovery of a Costa Rican woman who was cured of a brain aneurysm after praying to him in 2011.
He had already been credited with another miracle, curing a French nun of Parkinson’s disease.
John XXIII, who led the Catholic Church from 1958 to 1963, had been credited with one miracle.
A Vatican spokesman said Francis “certainly” had the power to dispense with the need for a second one.
And in an unprecedented step, the Vatican issued an encyclical co-written by Francis and his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. In it, they called for dialogue with nonbelievers and reiterated the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.