{"id":413736,"date":"2011-05-02T01:42:28","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T01:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/05\/02\/president-mugabe-attends-pope-john-paul-ii-beatification\/"},"modified":"2011-05-02T01:42:28","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T01:42:28","slug":"president-mugabe-attends-pope-john-paul-ii-beatification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/02\/president-mugabe-attends-pope-john-paul-ii-beatification\/","title":{"rendered":"President Mugabe Attends Pope John Paul II Beatification"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"48.8948065713\">\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.herald.co.zw\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/a47391c0herald180.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"The Herald (Harare)\" title=\"Visit The Herald (Harare)\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Itai Musengeyi<\/p>\n<p>1 May 2011<\/p>\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<p>THE late Pope John Paul II was beatified yesterday before a huge crowd of Catholics and world leaders who included President Mugabe.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Benedict presided over the ceremony, which saw his predecessor move closer to sainthood and drew more than one million people at the St Peters Square.<\/p>\n<p>Among the over one million people, which Rome police estimated to have thronged the square was French nun Marie Simon-Pierre, who says Pope John Paul helped her get cured of Parkinson&#8217;s Disease.<\/p>\n<p>She says she was cured of the disease in June 2005.<\/p>\n<p>President Mugabe was accompanied to the ceremony by First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe and their sons Chatunga and Robert Junior.<\/p>\n<p>The First Family are Catholics.<\/p>\n<p>The Zimbabwe delegation also included Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Ambassadors David Hamadziripi (France and the Vatican) and Mary Mubi (Italy) as well as senior Government officials.<\/p>\n<p>At least 90 official delegations from around the world were in attendance.<\/p>\n<p>There were up to 22 Heads of State and Government and representatives of royal families.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Benedict proclaimed the late Pope &#8220;blessed&#8221; to cheers from the crowd, a big number of them from Poland, the late pontiff&#8221;s home country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From now on Pope John Paul shall be called &#8216;blessed&#8217;,&#8221; he proclaimed, saying his predecessor&#8217;s feast day would be October 22, the day he was inaugurated to be Pope in 1978.<\/p>\n<p>The crowd, singing and carrying national flags, gathered at St Peter&#8217;s Square from as early as 5am to get a good position from where to follow the Mass.<\/p>\n<p>Police said some slept outside the square.<\/p>\n<p>Both Rome and the Vatican, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, were decorated with posters of the late Pope.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the Polish nationals at the ceremony said they also attended the funeral of the late Pope in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Benedict, speaking in Latin, praised his predecessor saying he had &#8220;the strength of a titan&#8221; and gave people &#8220;the strength to believe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<fieldset>\n<legend align=\"center\"><strong>More News on allAfrica.com<\/strong><\/legend>\n<\/fieldset>\n<p>AllAfrica &#8211; All the Time<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>More here:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/201105020036.html\" title=\"President Mugabe Attends Pope John Paul II Beatification\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">President Mugabe Attends Pope John Paul II Beatification<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Itai Musengeyi 1 May 2011 THE late Pope John Paul II was beatified yesterday before a huge crowd of Catholics and world leaders who included President Mugabe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - 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