2 Dollars Beatification of Pope John Paul II

Issued to mark the beatification ceremony held on May 1, 2011, in St. Peter's Square — a date Benedict XVI deliberately chose as Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast day John Paul II himself had instituted for the universal Church in 2000. The timing was not incidental; it compressed the beatification process to roughly six years after death, bypassing the usual five-year waiting period by papal dispensation granted in 2005.