Vatican editor

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY -- The editor of the Vatican newspaper said yesterday that Pope John Paul II was a "martyr" even though he survived a 1981 assassination attempt -- the latest official comment suggesting a speedy path to sainthood for the late pontiff.
Mario Agnes, editor-in-chief of the official Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano, told an annual pro-Catholic political meeting that the stones in St. Peter's Square where John Paul's blood was shed should be preserved because it was the blood of "an authentic martyred pope."
Ever since Pope Benedict XVI announced May 13 that he was putting John Paul on the fast track for possible sainthood, questions have arisen about whether he could be declared a martyr. Doing so would remove the need for the Vatican to confirm that a miracle attributed to his intercession had occurred after his April 2 death for him to be beatified.
The Vatican would still need to confirm a miracle occurred after his beatification for John Paul to be declared a saint.
Church officials had initially rejected outright any suggestion that the 1981 assassination attempt could be the basis for a martyrdom declaration since John Paul lived for 24 years after it. They also noted that other candidates for beatification and sainthood also had suffered ordinary illnesses at the end of their lives but weren't declared martyrs.
However, top officials are no longer dismissing the idea. Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said last month it was up to groups of theological experts to decide if the May 13, 1981, attempt on John Paul's life in St. Peter's Square -- as well as his long, public suffering before he died -- warranted a declaration of martyrdom.
"These stones of St. Peter's Square where a bit of John Paul II's blood fell may be merited, and certainly merit being preserved as a historic document, because there fell the blood of an authentic martyred pope, hit in the full of his physical vitality, victim of an attack," Agnes was quoted as saying by the ANSA and Apcom news agencies.
"The fact that he didn't die doesn't mean he wasn't a martyr," Agnes said.

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