Vatican City - Pope John Paul beatified seven people on Sunday, elevating three women and four men to one step from sainthood - including a man hanged by the Nazis.
The beatification of German Nicholas Gross was controversial in recent times because his son has opposed the Catholic Church's decision to lift his father towards sainthood.
Gross, 46 years old when he was executed in 1945, was a journalist who denounced the Nazis. A father of seven children, he was the only lay person to be beatified.
When the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, Gross was editor of Westdeutsche Arbeitszeitung, a Catholic-backed newspaper for workers in the industrial Ruhr valley. Until the paper was shut down in 1938, he refused to publish any photos of Hitler or other leading Nazis.
The others beatified on Sunday were Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, an Armenian bishop killed in Turkey in 1915; Alfonso Maria Fusco, an Italian priest who in the 19th century founded an order of nuns dedicated to helping poor children; Tommaso Maria Fusco, another Italian priest; and three nuns, Emilie Tavernier from Canada, Eugenia Picco from Italy and Maria Euthymia from Germany. - Reuters