CATHOLIC CHURCH DECLARES LATE POPE JOHN PAUL II AND POPE JOHN XXIII SAINTS TODAY (PHOTOS)

Pope Francis has declared two of his predecessors, John Paul II and John XXIII, saints of the Roman Catholic Church in an unprecedented double-canonization mass in St Peter's Square.

The two towering figures of the 20th-century church were canonized to great applause from hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered in the Vatican piazza carrying the red and white flags of John Paul's beloved homeland.

Among the crowds in St Peter's Square today was a large Polish contingent, which had travelled into Rome on 1,700 coaches as well as charter flights and trains. Nepicity.com gathered that some of the attendees that arrived Vatican last night even spent all night outside and had either slept on the street or not slept at all.

Pope John XXIII

Pope Francis was, unusually, joined by emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, his predecessor who resigned last year. The former German pontiff's presence had been uncertain due to ill health.  Nepicity.com can also authentically report that Cardinal Francis Arinze who is an Igbo Nigerian was spotted and he also expressed happiness over the development.

The photo on the left was allegedly taken at Beskid Zywiecki in Poland when John Paul II died on April 2, 2005

Moving on, the other unprecedented aspect of the event was the canonization of both John Paul II and John XXIII at the same time. Beatified in 2011, the Polish pope had been on a record-quick path to sainthood since his death in 2005, when pilgrims at his funeral shouted 'Santo Subito!' ('Saint Immediately.

John XXIII, however, the Italian pontiff from 1958 to 1963 who called the revolutionary Second Vatican Council, had not been expected to be recognized as a saint imminently as he lacked the second miracle usually required.

Never one to be bound by convention, however, Francis announced the dual-canonization last year, not long after his election as the Catholic Church’s first Latin American pope.

Canonizing a hero of liberal Catholics alongside the darling of many conservatives was seen by Vatican observers as an attempt to bring together different wings of the church.