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Pope: John Paul made saint soon

Pope Benedict shows a picture of his predecessor to crowds.

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• Face of the Church

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KRAKOW, Poland (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI, visiting John Paul II's native region in homage to his predecessor, said Saturday he hopes the late pope will be declared a saint "in the near future."

Benedict's encouraging remark got a roar of applause from the 15,000 people gathered at a shrine outside Krakow during his visit to the city where John Paul served as archbishop before becoming pope.

Honoring John Paul is a major theme of Benedict's four-day trip to Poland, where the cause of John Paul's sainthood is extremely popular. Some were even hoping Benedict might make the official announcement during the trip.

Benedict, standing next to John Paul's former secretary, Krakow's Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, said, "Your Cardinal Stanislaw expresses the hope, as do I, that in the short future we will be to enjoy the beatification and canonization of John Paul II."

Benedict earlier visited John Paul's nearby birthplace of Wadowice, where he joined townspeople's prayers for sainthood.

A large banner reading "Wadowice Prays For Sainthood Immediately, John Paul II the Great" in Italian and Polish hung in the packed square in front of the church where John Paul was baptized, and Benedict said he shared their cause.

"I wished to stop precisely here, in the place where his faith began and matured, to pray together with all of you that he may soon be elevated to the glory of the altars," Benedict told some 30,000 people jammed into the town square under cloudy skies.

The crowd waved yellow and white Vatican flags as Benedict arrived by motorcade to pray in the church and visit John Paul's childhood home, accompanied by Dziwisz.

After praying in the ornate church, Benedict walked down a cobblestone street to the house on Koscielna Street where John Paul spent his boyhood, now a museum devoted to the late pope. There he was greeted by the nuns who run the museum, and he walked through the rooms where photographs document the boyhood of Karol Wojtyla, the future pope.

"The Holy Father is doing everything to make John Paul II a saint and we owe him deep gratitude for that," said Halina Bucka, 48, a kindergarten teacher from Wadowice who joined the crowd. "I think that the visit in Wadowice will strengthen him on that path and that very soon John Paul II will be officially announced a saint."

Mieczyslaw Koziol, 53, a businessman from Laczany, near Wadowice, also was quick to praise German-born Benedict.

"Benedict is consistent in his effort to make John Paul a saint. The fact that the process is proceeding so quickly is all thanks to him," he said. "Benedict follows in the footsteps of John Paul II, and this way he shows his greatness."

Catholics in John Paul's native Poland are among the most fervent advocates for the late pope to be made a saint.

Police estimated 30,000 had filled the square and surrounding streets for the ceremony, spokesman Pawel Biedziak said.

The Wadowice stop comes on the third day of a four-day trip which will include Benedict's visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, a visit heavy with significance for Catholic-Jewish relations, a favorite cause of both Benedict and John Paul.