The interpretation may seem a touch cynical, but how about a skilfully beatified shell company?

ECONOMIST: PCCW

His cause for beatification was started by John Paul II, and he was the first person beatified by Pope Benedict.

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If and when Pope Benedict XVI is beatified, his visit to the U.S. will have created a host of relics.

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She was declared venerable by Pope Pius XII in 1943 and then beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980.

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Fra Angelico was first described as a Dominican friar in about 1423 and beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982.

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The six years it took from his death until Pope Benedict XVI beatified him in 2011 was the shortest time in modern history.

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The university, which has 3, 000 students, was established in 1968 and is named after its patron, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, who was beatified during the Pope's visit to Birmingham in 2010.

BBC: Newman University

Preca will be beatified along with two other Maltese -- cleric and lawyer Ignatius Falzon, who converted at least 640 British servicemen to Catholicism in the 19th century, and cloistered Benedictine nun Maria Adeodata Pisani (1806-1855).

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The five figures commemorated along with Marco D'Aviano are the latest in a line of 1, 310 people this Pope has beatified - a number greater than all those beatified by his predecessors over the past four centuries.

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The statue of the late pope - who was beatified on 1 May in a ceremony which drew more than one million people to the capital - was paid for by a foundation, at no cost to the city.

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