Exactly when Mother Marianne Cope would be beatified was in some doubt after the death of Pope John Paul II, who had scheduled the ceremony for May 15. Today, though, the Vatican called the Sisters of St. Francis in Syracuse to confirm the beatification would take place next Saturday evening.

"We're very grateful to Rome for considering our request and to (Syracuse) Bishop (James) Moynihan for making the request," said Sister Grace Anne Dillenschneider.

Pope Benedict XVI has designated a cardinal to stand in for him at the beatification ceremony in a shift from his predecessor who declared more “blesseds” and saints than all his predecessors over the past 500 years combined.

The head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, will celebrate the Mass to beatify the Franciscan nun and the co-founder of a missionary society in Spain.

In another change, the Mass will be held on a Saturday afternoon inside St. Peter’s Basilica. Weather permitting, Pope John Paul II would hold his saint-making ceremonies in St. Peter’s Square to encourage huge turnouts of the faithful on Sunday mornings.

Saraiva Martins told Vatican Radio today that Benedict was merely reverting to the accepted practice at the Vatican that pre-dated John Paul, whereby the pope would designate a bishop and cardinal to preside over beatifications. The pope himself would celebrate canonizations.

That practice changed in 1971 when Pope Paul VI himself celebrated the Mass to beatify Maximilian Kolbe, a priest who gave his life for a man at Auschwitz.

“That was the first time it happened,” Saraiva Martins said.

John Paul, though, continued the tradition — particularly in his many travels around the world, the cardinal said. During his 26-year pontificate, John Paul beatified 1,338 people and canonized 482 — more than all his predecessors over the past five centuries combined.

His output had raised some eyebrows that the Vatican was making too many saints and that the distinction between someone who had been beatified and canonized was getting blurred, said John-Peter Pham, a Vatican analyst.

“The theologian in Benedict wants to restore the balance,” Pham said.

One miracle is needed for someone to be beatified; two to be declared a saint.

The other person being beatified besides Mother Marianne is Ascensione del Cuore di Gesu, had been on the Vatican schedule before Benedict was elected pope, although the dates changed after John Paul died.

While Pope Benedict will not officiate at the Vatican ceremony, he may attend, said Sister Mary Laurence Hanley, who heads the Cope sainthood cause.

About 100 people from Syracuse and 40 others from Hawai'i will travel to Rome for Mother Marianne's beatification.

Mother Marianne and six other Franciscan sisters came to Hawai'i in 1883 to work with leprosy patients at the Kalaupapa settlement on Molokai alongside the famous Belgian missionary, Father Damien DeVeuster, who also is a candidate for sainthood.

Mother Marianne died in 1918 at age 80.

In December, the pope accepted a report of a miracle attributed to her intervention. Her body, buried at Kalaupapa, was exhumed in January and returned to Syracuse.

Once beatified, she will take the title "Blessed" and will be assigned a feast day on the church calendar.