President Mugabe attends Pope John Paul II beatification

leaders who included President Mugabe.
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.
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’s Disease.
She says she was cured of the disease in June 2005.
President Mugabe was accompanied to the ceremony by First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe and their sons Chatunga and Robert Junior.
The First Family are Catholics.
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.
At least 90 official delegations from around the world were in attendance.
There were up to 22 Heads of State and Government and representatives of royal families.
Pope Benedict proclaimed the late Pope “blessed” to cheers from the crowd, a big number of them from Poland, the late pontiff”s home country.
“From now on Pope John Paul shall be called ‘blessed’,” he proclaimed, saying his predecessor’s feast day would be October 22, the day he was inaugurated to be Pope in 1978.
The crowd, singing and carrying national flags, gathered at St Peter’s Square from as early as 5am to get a good position from where to follow the Mass.
Police said some slept outside the square.
Both Rome and the Vatican, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, were decorated with posters of the late Pope.
Some of the Polish nationals at the ceremony said they also attended the funeral of the late Pope in 2005.
Pope Benedict, speaking in Latin, praised his predecessor saying he had “the strength of a titan” and gave people “the strength to believe.”