VATICAN CITY, June 16: Before one of the largest crowds ever to fill the Vatican area, Pope John Paul on Sunday made a saint of Padre Pio, a 20th century mystic monk who is said to have borne the bleeding wounds of Christ for 50 years.

Hundreds of thousands of people thronged St Peter’s Square and all the streets in the vicinity for hours before the ceremony started.

Cheers and applause went up in Rome and throughout Italy when the 82-year-old Pope, wearing gold and white vestments, proclaimed Pio, who was born in the southern Italian city of Pietrelcina, a saint.

“We include the blessed Pio of Pietrelcina in the annals of saints and we establish that throughout the whole Church he be devotedly honoured among the saints,” the Pope said, reading a Latin formula in a trembling voice.

Fireworks went off in broad daylight in the southern town of San Giovanni Rotondo, where Pio lived most of his life in a monastery.

At the Vatican, Italian civil protection squads were on hand to distribute about one million bottles of water and hose down the crowd to bring relief from the sweltering heat.—Reuters