Vatican City ? Drawing one of the Vatican’s largest-ever crowds, Pope John Paul II Sunday bestowed the honor of sainthood on the controversial founder of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic organization whose rigorous defense of Church teaching has won the pontiff’s favor.

Police said more than 300,000 people turned out for Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer’s canonization, overflowing from St. Peter’s Square and filling several city blocks toward the Tiber River.

Sainthood for the Spanish priest who founded the group in 1928 came just 27 years after his death one of the shortest waiting times in the Vatican’s history.

The swift canonization underscored John Paul’s support for a group that critics say is too elitist, inculcates unthinking devotion among its followers and encourages secretive practices, including self-flagellation and the wearing of hair shirts.

Some Catholics, including some former Opus Dei members, contended Escriva was unworthy of sainthood because he was ill-tempered and arrogant.

Opus Dei insists Escriva’s leadership qualities were sometimes misunderstood and rejects the claims of elitism. Escriva held that sainthood need not require extraordinary deeds but could be achieved by carrying out everyday tasks well, from being a homemaker to being a lawyer.

Opus Dei which is Latin for “God’s Work” has more than 80,000 members, most of them from the laity and many of them holding top jobs in professions such as law, medicine, media and banking. It is led by a core of celibate professionals who often live in the organization’s residences around the world. Membership also includes married people.

John Paul, dismayed by the flagging faith of many rank-and-file Catholics, has been intrigued by the group for decades. On Sunday, he called Escriva’s teaching “current and urgent” saying the new saint “liked to reiterate with vigor that Christian faith opposes conformism and inner inertia.”

Many of those at the canonization came from Latin America, where Opus Dei has a strong foothold and where the Vatican is concerned about Catholics defecting to evangelical sects.

Opus Dei’s reputation for elitism started during the 1939-75 Spanish dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. Many technocrats in his later governments belonged to the organization.

Many Vatican observers Sunday remarked upon the extreme composure and orderliness of the huge crowd, a sharp contrast to the deafening shouts of joy and jockeying for good views at the last previous big sainthood ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, that of Italian monk Padre Pio in June.