ASSOCIATED PRESS Pope Benedict XVI wore flower lei yesterday donated by pilgrims and faithful who attended Saturday's beatification ceremony of Mother Marianne Cope.

Cope’s beneficiary
meets pope

VATICAN CITY » Pope Benedict XVI met with an American woman yesterday whose cure from multiple organ failure set Mother Marianne Cope, a 19th century missionary who worked with leprosy patients in Hawaii, on the road to sainthood.

The 24-year-old woman, who has kept her identity secret, presented the pope with bone relics of the Franciscan nun from Syracuse, N.Y., to whom she prayed during her illness as a teenager.

"She still wants to keep this special time for Marianne," said Sister Mary Lawrence Hanley, of the young woman's refusal to go public with her story. Hanley is biographer of Mother Marianne, who was beatified in a solemn ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica on Saturday.

Beatification is the last formal step before possible sainthood. Church law requires approval by the Vatican of a miracle -- a medically unexplainable cure from illness obtained through prayer to the sainthood candidate.

Benedict, speaking in English, greeted the several hundred pilgrims who had come from Hawaii and New York State for the beatification. He bent down while a nun placed a colorful lei around his neck.

"All she achieved was inspired by her personal love of the Lord which she in turn expressed through her love of those abandoned by society in a most wretched way," the pope said of Marianne's 35 years of work among lepers on the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Molokai.

After the audience, many in the group visited the tomb of Pope John Paul II in the Vatican grottos. Benedict's predecessor had approved the nun's beatification before his death on April 2.

Unlike John Paul, who presided over beatification ceremonies, Benedict delegated the task to high church officials. Saturday's ceremony was presided over by Cardinal Jose Martins Saraiva, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Sainthood.