Escriva fills St Peter's

by Viviane Hewitt in Rome
HUGE crowds flocked to the Vatican for the beatification of the controversial founder of Opus Del, in a week which also saw the launch of a less contentious cause to beatify Pope Paul VI.
As many as 200,000 pilgrims travelled in the hot sunshine to St Peter's to watch as Mgr Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer was pronounced one step away from sainthood.
Critics have attacked the process, begun after Mgr Escriva's death 17 years ago, fur its undue haste, and the influence they believe Opus Dei exerts on the Vatican.
In keeping with the opulent position Opus Del has come to enjoy within the Church, a number of pilgrims returned to a cruise ship aboard which they had travelled from Spain. Others slept on benches or in tents set up by the Italian army.
During the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II told joyful Opus Dei supporters that Spanish-born Escriva should be hailed for his "supernatural intuition" in sanctifying the role of work.
But not everyone was celebrating. Ten bishops from Spain boycotted the occasion and others renewed criticism of Escriva's alleged fascist sympathies. Some suggested the simultaneous beatification of Sr Giuseppina Bakke a Sudanese nun and an ex-slave was an attempt to divert attention from Mgr Escriva.