Pope Francis has approved the miracle credited to Pope Paul VI and will beatify him as "the Blessed of the Church" at a ceremony on October 19, 2014. The Vatican press release stated last week.

Pope Paul VI is known as a stalwart who did much to modernize the Roman Catholic Church but pronounced a ban on artificial contraception and abortion.

It is no surprise that the miracle attributed to Pope Paul is related to protecting a child from getting killed by abortion. The beatification ceremony would come at the end of the special meeting of bishops called at the Vatican in October 2014 to discuss family life.

The scientifically verified miracle, that happened in 2001, is concerned to a pregnant woman in California whose unborn child was found to be at high risk of dying in the womb or being born with severe birth defects. Doctors advised the woman to undergo an abortion, but, at the advice of a nun, she prayed to the late Pope Paul VI. Despite the diagnoses of the rupture of the fetal bladder and absence of amniotic liquid, the woman decided to continue her pregnancy, against medical advice, by praying to Pope Paul for intercession. Evidence includes scan reports, lab reports and clinical findings unanimously verified and agreed upon by doctors in the US and around the world.

The boy child, now an adolescent, was born without any problems.

The Vatican medical committee assigned to study the miracle finally ruled that the healing was medically inexplicable. Doctors and medical scientists also certified that medical science cannot explain this miraculous change happened to the child.

The Catholic Church teaches that God performs miracles through saints who are believed to be with God in heaven, when they intercede on behalf of people who pray to them. But no saint is adored or worshipped by Catholics as, often, misinterpreted by non-Catholics. Just as we ask our friends and families "to pray for us", Catholics ask saints to pray for them in times of difficulties.

Beatification is the last formal step before possible sainthood. Traditionally, one more miracle needs to happen before official Sainthood, but Pope Francis has the authority to speed up the process based on the nature of the miracle and requests from the faithful.

During his pontificate from 1963 to 1978, Pope Paul made landmark progress in improving Catholics' relationship with other Christians, and Jews as well. He travelled to distant lands, reaching out to all Christians, ended the conflicts between Catholics and Orthodox Christians when he journeyed to Jerusalem in 1964, and embraced Patriarch Athengoras, the then Orthodox leader. Pope Paul's legacy was later followed by Saint Pope John Paul II, who was canonized on April 27th 2014.

Like Saint John Paul II, Paul VI was hard to be labeled as progressive or conservative. Both were conservative on sexual issues, but enthusiastically embraced liturgical freedom and ecumenism set in motion by the Second Vatican Council. In his 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae" (means "of human life") Paul VI enshrined the church's teaching against artificial contraception and abortion.