Vatican City - (Zenit.org) - John Paul II presented the beauty of the family when canonizing an Italian doctor who accepted the risk of death rather than endanger her unborn child. The pope said "this holy mother," St. Gianna Beretta Molla, followed Christ’s example of loving one’s "own in the world and loving them to the end." The pope recalled her as "a simple yet especially significant messenger of divine love" when he canonized her and five others May 16 in St. Peter’s Square as 40,000 pilgrims from all over the world watched and waved flags and banners. Pietro Molla, more than 90 years old and the modern church’s first living husband of a saint, looked on with his two daughters, one son, and other relatives as the pope recited the formula of canonization. Born in 1922 near Milan in Magenta, Italy, St. Molla is often referred to as the "pro-life saint." She died of a uterine tumor in 1962, just one week after giving birth to her fourth child, who was present at the ceremony.

(Zenit.org).- The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Mexico has been given to John Paul II. The car, one of a limited series of 3,000, was given to the Pope May 26 at the end of the general audience by Luis Manuel Abella Armella, president of the Mexican Volkswagen concession. He was accom-panied by a delegation of workers of the Puebla plant, where the car was made. John Paul II blessed the car and the delegation when he returned to the Apostolic Palace after the general audience, Vatican sources said. The gift was in gratitude for the Holy Father's visit to Mexico in 2002, when he canonized Juan Diego, the Volkswagen employees explained.

The light blue Beetle, which will have a Vatican City license plate (its initials are SCV), is the last in this series of cars whose origins date back to the 1930s. Some 21 million "bugs" have been produced over the years. Their production stopped in Europe in 1978, but continued in Mexico until last July 30.