CHICAGO - When Pope John Paul II was sick and clinging to life, devoted Catholics prayed for him.

Now, in the week after his death, some of those same people are already directing prayers to him as if he were a saint.

Kay Geary, 55, who attends St. John Cantius Catholic Church in Chicago, says she has no doubt that the departed pope will be canonized in coming years.

"I don't feel sad about it because I know he's in heaven," Geary said before attending mass Sunday. "He's gone to his just reward and I think he had a marvelous death. I feel joyous about it. We have another saint in heaven."

Some experts say Geary is probably right. Pope John Paul II's life, assassination attempt and popular devotion all make him a likely candidate for sainthood, according to Jean Bethke Elshtain, professor of social and political ethics at the University of Chicago's Divinity School.

"The idea of John Paul II becoming a saint suggests the shift that has happened in the canonization process," Elshtain said. "We are now seeing that there is a popular ground for a person to become a saint, instead of coming from the Curia," the Vatican bureaucracy.

"This happened with Mother Teresa and now with Pope John Paul II. There's no way to stop it."

During his 26-year papacy, John Paul II simplified the once-complex process of canonization and named more than 470 people as saints, more than all other popes combined. But some experts say elevating a 20th century pope to sainthood is a different matter, one that can be rife with politics.

In the past 900 years, only three popes have been recognized as saints, including Celestine V, a monk who abdicated in 1294 after only five months in office and was canonized in 1313. The others were Pius V, a 16th century pope who implemented the teachings of the Council of Trent, and Pius X, who served from 1903 to 1914.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II himself beatified two popes in one ceremony, placing two starkly different men on the path to sainthood: the much beloved Pope John XXIII, who died in 1963, and the more controversial 19th century pope Pius IX, known in part for his proclamation of papal infallibility.

Under the new process for canonization, a five-year waiting period must pass after the person's death. The Vatican says this is "to allow greater balance and objectivity in evaluating the case and to let the emotions of the moment dissipate." Then there must be proof of at least two miracles, one for beatification and one for canonization. In considering whether to elevate a pope to sainthood, his papal policies are taken into account.

After Mother Teresa died in 1996, Pope John Paul II took the extraordinary step of waiving the five-year period for the beatification process to begin. In 2002, the pope approved a miracle involving a 30-year old woman who said praying to Mother Teresa cured her stomach cancer.

"People are looking for miracles," said Elshstain, "and some leaders might point to his assassination attempt as one. John Paul himself said it was a miracle that the bullet did not hit any of his major arteries."

Other theologians have doubts.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, believes there is a possibility that John Paul could be canonized. But when asked to rank 20th century popes in terms of impact, McBrien placed John Paul II second to John XXIII.

In the interview published in The Tidings, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, McBrien said the next pope will be a major factor in determining whether John Paul II becomes a saint.

"That will depend entirely on what kind of men succeed him, and whether one of them has a special attachment or devotion to John Paul II," McBrien said. "John Paul II may or may not be canonized, but John XXIII will surely get there first."

Cathy Ptak, 39, another member of St. John Cantius, said on Sunday that now may be the most appropriate time to pray to John Paul II because if he's going to become a saint, this is when he would be most active in performing miracles.

Ptak remembers seeing the pope in Grant Park in 1979. "The awe, that presence. You can't even explain it. You can just feel the presence of God," she said.