Father Andrea Santoro, the Italian priest murdered amid anti-Christian anger in Turkey last weekend, is to be put on the path to sainthood.
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, Italy's highest-ranking prelate, announced his intention to open procedures leading eventually to canonisation during the slain priest's funeral in Rome on Friday.
"I am convinced that Father Andrea's sacrifice bears all the hallmarks of Christian martyrdom," Ruini said in a homily which drew long applause from the hundreds of people packed into the Basilica of St John Lateran.
Father Santoro, 58, who came from the Rome area, was shot dead in his church in the Black Sea town of Trabzon while he was praying after mass on Sunday. His killer reportedly shouted "Allah is Great" before fleeing.
The first stage of making someone a saint involves 'beatification', which means that a person is referred to as
'blessed' and can be venerated by Catholics in the diocese where he or she was born.
The next step, canonisation, confers full sainthood and holds a person up for veneration by the universal Catholic Church.
Cardinal Ruini's reference to the priest as a "martyr" was significant because Catholics who die for their faith
generally achieve beatification more quickly than other candidates for 'blessed' status. But the prelate said he would wait for the statutory five years to pass after Father Andrea's death before starting the beatification procedures.
During his homily, Cardinal Ruini noted with emotion that the priest's mother had forgiven "the person who armed himself to kill her son". A Turkish youth, identified as Ouzhan Akdil, 16, has confessed to Father Andrea's murder. He reportedly told police he acted after being enraged by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the European press.
Cardinal Ruini appealed for the "right to religious freedom, the mother of all freedoms" to be upheld everywhere in world, without discrimination". Throughout the homily, the priest's mother sat quietly
in the front pew of the basilica with her eyes fixed on her son's coffin.
As well as the victim's family and relatives, attending the service were hundreds of Romans who had met Father Andrea during his years working in two of the city's parishes. Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who was in Turin for the start of the Winter Olympics, sent a message saying the priest had been "cut down by blind violence". The Vatican has spoken out against the publication of the cartoons depicting Mohammed and called for more respect for religious symbols.
Meanwhile, Pope Benedict has expressed the hope that the Italian priest's "sacrifice" will help inter-religious
dialogue, a cause for which Father Andrea battled for many years.
He called the priest a "silent and courageous servant of the Gospel".
In a move apparently timed to underline good relations with Turkey, the Vatican on Thursday announced that the pontiff has accepted an invitation to visit the Muslim country in November.
But the depth of the backlash among some of the nation's young Muslims was highlighted again on Thursday by a fresh incident of anti-Christian violence in Turkey . According to Catholic officials in the country, a group of youths attacked a priest in the town of Smirne, shouting "We'll kill you all".
Speaking at Father Andrea's funeral, Cardinal Ruini dismissed "absurd insinuations" by local Turkish television networks to the effect that the priest had tried to force young Muslims to convert to Catholicism, sometimes paying them to do so.
