Resources for tomorrow's Beatification Ceremony of Pope John Paul II



Photo: AFP/Getty

I've decided to wait on completing and posting my pics from Holy Week a few more days yet because this story is rightfully taking center stage. 

I want to point you to some sources for the beatification of Pope John Paul II.

Here is a webpage the Vatican has set up with events for the beatification.  There are program booklets, as well.  I believe we will see live links to addresses and homilies here. 

Tonight already, there is a vigil service at 8:00pm local Rome time. 

Tomorrow, there will be Holy Mass for the Beatification of the Servant of God John Paul II Saint Peter's Square, at 10:00 (4:00am ET), with Pope Benedict delivering a homily, and on Monday a Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated by Cardinal Bertone.


Some major news networks like Fox News are covering the beatification ceremony starting at 4:00am ET, as is EWTN.  

If you want raw coverage, you can usually watch it live on Vatican television here: http://www.vatican.va/video/index.html.   Unless you know Italian, you'll want to switch over to EWTN to hear a translation of the homily, more than likely. 

There is a beautiful series of photo tributes to Pope John Paul II at a Vatican webpage set up for this purpose: http://www.johnpaulii.va/en/

PORTALS TO KEEP AN EYE ON

Watch some of these high-paced sites for newslinks to a multitude of news stories and commentaries on the beatification.  There are some great links at these sites now:

• New Advent
• Pew Sitter
• Luke Coppen at UK Catholic Herald
• Tito Edwards at National Catholic Register

SOCIAL MEDIA

The Vatican is going all out on social media.  On things like Twitter, you will see high-paced offerings of comments and links to things like addresses, homilies, commentaries, news stories, etc.  Look for a twitter tag of #JPII and select it when it is a hyperlink.  You will see all the tweets made with that label. 

• YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/giovannipaoloii
• Pope2You on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Pope2YouVatican
• Vatican News on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/news_va_en
• On Facebook, there is a Pope John Paul II page: http://www.facebook.com/vatican.johnpaul2?sk=wall#!/vatican.johnpaul2  (see the events page here: http://www.facebook.com/vatican.johnpaul2?sk=wall#!/vatican.johnpaul2?sk=app_4949752878)

That's just a sampling.  There are many bloggers covering this event and they will be tweeting and blogging from Rome.  Watch the twitter accounts and blogs of just some of those chosen to be at the Vatican blognic which comes after the beatification. You can see a list of all 150 bloggers selected by the Pontifical Commission of Social Communications to attend in person.  I did not even toss my name in the ring, mainly because, even if in the off-chance that I had been chosen, I would not have been able to attend.  I'm hoping they will do this kind of thing again, but plan it a few months in advance.  This caught them by surprise.  It was initially intended to be a blognic for those who were already going to be in Rome covering Pope John Paul II's beatification.  But then people in the blogosphere went nuts, tossing their names in the mix and even planning "the other Vatican blognic" for those not likely to be chosen. 

• http://twitter.com/#!/roccopalmo (Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia)
• http://twitter.com/#!/americanpapist (Tom Peters, the American Papist and blogger at Catholic Vote)
• http://twitter.com/#!/the_crescat (Kat at the Crescat - the queen of Catholic humor)
  http://twitter.com/#%21/ironiccatholic (blog http://www.ironiccatholic.com/)
• http://totustuusfamily.blogspot.com/ (blog of a Catholic family)
• http://twitter.com/#!/AnnaArco  (Anna Arco of the UK Catholic Herald)
•   (Taylor Marshall of Canterbury Tales blog

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