Vatican City, April 27: A phial containing the blood of late Pope John Paul II will go on display at the Vatican, an official statement said.
The phial will be displayed during the pope’s beatification ceremony and is part of a small collection of relics belonging to the late Polish pontiff, the Vatican said.
It will be placed in a container specially prepared by the Office of Papal Liturgical Celebrations.
The phial will be on display along with John Paul II’s coffin which will be moved from the crypt below St. Peter’s in the Vatican to a side chapel above so that pilgrims can pray in front of it.
Thousands of pilgrims are expected to attend the ceremony during the weekend.
Four phials of blood were taken from the pope in 2005 during the last days of his life, in case a transfusion was needed, the Vatican said.
Two of the phials have been kept ever since in a Rome hospital lab, while the other two have been kept by the late pontiff’s personal secretary Cardinal Stanislao Dziwisz, who is now archbishop of Krakow in Poland.
“The blood has remained liquid due to an anti-coagulant that was put into the test-tubes at the time,” the statement said.
John Paul II died aged 84 April 2, 2005, after a long battle against Parkinson’s disease.
Beatification is the penultimate step to sainthood.
–IANS/AKI