President off to Rome

– of the late Pope John Paul II tomorrow at the Vatican.
Accompanying him was the First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe and senior Government officials.
Cde Mugabe is a Catholic and is among VIPs invited by the Vatican for the ceremony.
According to BBC, other VIPs include the president of Pope John Paul’s native Poland, Bronislaw Komrowski, who will be accompanied by Senate Speaker, Grzegorz Schetyna, and House Speaker, Bogdan Borusewicz.
King Albert and Queen Paola of Belgium are among the European royalty who will travel to the Vatican to attend the beatification, while the Duke of Gloucester, Richard Windsor, will represent the British royal family.
Irish president Mary McAleese is also expected to attend.
President Mugabe also attended the funeral mass for the late Pope in 2005 at the Vatican.
Media reports said Vatican officials expect around one million people to attend the ceremony which will be led by Pope Benedict XVI and will take place in St Peter’s Square before a vast TV audience.
Beatification is the final step before sainthood.
It arose as a way of authorising veneration to a candidate in the local area where she or he lived. It entitles the candidate to be called “Blessed”.
After tomorrow, Catholics in Poland and in Rome will celebrate a feast in honour of “Blessed John Paul II” every year on October 22.
In a special decree issued in April, the Vatican has also given Catholics all over the world one year to celebrate Masses in thanksgiving for the beatification of John Paul.
Canonisation is the formal act of declaring someone a saint in the Catholic Church.
In preparation for tomorrow’s ceremony, the coffin of Pope John Paul II was removed from the Vatican Grottos yesterday, Vatican reported.
It said the ceremony involved the reading of the Litany of the Saints as the wooden casket was lifted from the marble tomb.