POPE John Paul II, who led the Catholic Church for nearly 27 years, and Pope John XXIII, who called the Second Vatican Council, are to be declared saints.
The Vatican said Pope Francis had approved a second miracle attributed to John Paul, a Pole who was elected in 1978 as the first non-Italian pope in 450 years.
He died in 2005 and his elevation to sainthood ranks as the fastest in modern times.
The Vatican also said Pope John XXIII, who headed the Church from 1958 to 1963 and in 1962 called the council that reformed the Church, would be made a saint even although he has only been credited with one miracle since his death.
The canonisation ceremonies, which are likely to bring hundreds of thousands to Rome, are expected this year.
John Paul had already been credited with the cure a French nun of Parkinson's disease, the same malady he himself suffered, before he was beatified in 2011. The second miracle attributed to his intercession is the cure of a Costa Rican woman who prayed to him for her failing health on the day of his beatification.
In the case of Pope John XXIII, who was beatified in 2000, Francis waived the customary rules requiring a second miracle after beatification.
Francis, who has tried to instill a spirit of simplicity and reform in the Church since his election in March, is known to have great admiration for the reforming Pope John, who was born of peasant stock in northern Italy.
John Paul went down in history as the "globe-trotting pope," making more than 100 trips outside Italy.
He was also credited with being instrumental in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 because of his defence of the Solidarity trade union in his native Poland. As a result, he is already considered a saint by many of his countrymen.
Millions of people attended his funeral in April, 2005, with many crying "Santo Subito" or "Make him a saint immediately".
"I am so happy and hardly can wait. John Paul II was one of a kind," said Ewa Jezierska, 72, a Polish saleswoman in Warsaw.
John XXIII has for decades been venerated by Italians. While he was pope for less than five years, his pontificate coincided with the Italy's transformation through an "economic miracle" in the post-war years.
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