I read in the paper the other day that the Vatican is considering making the pope a martyr. This would put him on the fast-track to becoming a saint. According to the dictionary, a martyr is:

a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion

This seems a bit silly to me. First off, he didn’t die for his religion. If anything, he lived too long for his religion. He looked like he was just a propped up corpse for the last few years. Take a break, you deserve it. You’ve done a lot of good, now pass the torch on with some dignity.
Too late for that attitude now.
A saint shouldn’t just be churned out because a bunch of yahoos in the papal square want it. The only person that really helps is to give the Saint a few new aliases.
Also, doesn’t it diminish the other martyrs who actually did die for their religion. He lived for 24 years after his near death experience. And it wasn’t tortured poverty stricken years either.
Look at it this way. If the Congressional Medal of Freedom was handed out like candy, it would be pretty insulting to all the people who earned it.
Do the process correctly. Don’t fast track it. Take your time and do the research. You might find out he doesn’t deserve to be a saint. But don’t put words into god’s mouth. Find evidence he should be a saint, not just the faith.

But then the scientific method isn’t that popular with the religious right.