Normally, they are held every every two years, at an international level, but the Pope said that a three year preparation will produce a more spiritually fruitful result.

His next stop on this North American tour is Guatemala where President Alfonso Portillo has honored a Papal request for a moritorium on the death penalty. The request came in a letter hand delivered by Papal Nuncio Archbishop Ramiro Moliner Ingles.

On Saturday, President Portillo announced that there would be no more executions for the remainder of his term in office

and that he would submit a request to Congress to abolish the death penalty. He added that the Pope’s request “was a message of reasoning, of a moral, ethical, religious and magnanimous character, in the hope of peace".

The last executions in Guatemala were by lethal injection, in June 2000. There are currently 36 convicts scheduled for execution, including five who had escaped from prison last year.

While in Guatemala, Pope John Paul II will celebrate the canonisation of a saint for our time.

Pedro de San Jose de Betancur was born in the Canary Islands in the 17th century and became a church janitor who turned his back on his family, flunked out of divinity school and found his calling only after preaching to prisoners.

Associated Press reports:
"Brother Pedro was a man who, without access to education or church resources, discovered people who had been abandoned by the church" said Celso Lara, a Guatemalan historian. "Now the Pope is showing Guatemala that he has not abandoned him."