An Italian mountain peak was renamed after the late Pope John Paul II on May 18 because it would have been the late pontiff's 85th birthday.
The 2400 metre-high peak is located in the Gran Sasso Mountain, the highest mountain in the Appennines, which John Paul had visited many times during his 26-year-papacy. It was previously known as "The Gendarme".
The pope, an avid mountaineer in his youth, reportedly told pilgrims in St. Peter's Square once that in the Bible, mountains "were considered a special place to meet God."
