The Pope's speech was memorable especially for the passage in which he described Father Crescitelli's martyrdom: Humanly speaking, his death was horrible; perhaps one of the most atrocious recorded in history.

Nothing was missing, neither the cruelty of the torments, nor the time they lasted, the most barbaric humiliations, nor the suffering of the heart, nor the hypocritical betrayal of false friends, nor the hostile and threatening screams of his murderers, nor the darkness of being abandoned.Pope John Paul II included him in the list of 120 Martyr Saints of China canonized in St. Peter's Square on October 1, 2000.

This large group canonisation was bitterly opposed in China itself, with Bishop Fu Tieshan, the leader of the state-run Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association describing it as "intolerable".

A further statement from China's State Administration of Religious Affairs singled out Alberico Crescitelli for special comment, alleging that he had been "notorious for taking the 'right of the first night' of each bride under his diocese.

[2] In his homily at the canonisation ceremony on 1 October 2000, Pope John Paul II made a statement asking for forgiveness for any past wrongs by the missionaries to China: "There are those who with a partial and not very objective reading of history see only limits and errors in their action.