VATICAN CITY—On a narrow cobblestone street about a block away from St. Peter’s Square, religious pilgrims and tourists crowd around a wicker basket with a sign advertising “Two For One.” The basket is full of metal keychains with the likenesses of John Paul II and John XXIII, the two dead popes who will be elevated to sainthood in a massive “popapalooza” ceremony on April 27. You won’t find the current Pope Francis in the bin, though. His likeness adorns the more expensive posters, calendars and tea towels inside the store. And you won’t find retired Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, who lives in a convent on the Vatican grounds, unless you ask the store clerk. “Not a big seller,” she says, pulling out a shoebox with a few Benedict tokens.
Like many of the 4 million religious pilgrims and curious tourists expected to descend on the eternal city for the canonization ceremony, Genevieve Krall, a Belgian legal assistant, is staying for the week between Easter and the double canonization, contributing to a much-appreciated tourism boost. As a staunch Catholic, she prays to saints as part of her daily devotion, but she isn’t sure that either of the two popes are actually saint material quite yet. “I saw Pope John Paul II in Belgium in 1995 and I was here by chance when he died in 2005,” Krall told The Daily Beast as she rummaged through the keychains for a second John Paul II for her aging mother back home. “I decided to come back for his canonization because it felt personal. It’s rare to have shared the same space in time with someone who is now a saint.”
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