Posted on 12/20/2004 5:45:44 PM PST by wagglebee
CANDIDATES for sainthood will be exonerated from the requirement to have performed a miracle under guidelines being considered by the Pope.
Already under fire from some Roman Catholics for running a “saint factory”, the Pope is preparing to overturn a centuries-old rule that candidates for canonisation must have performed “medically inexplicable” posthumous miracles.
The Pope, 84, has created 482 saints in his 26 years as pontiff — more than all his predecessors put together — and has beatified 1,337 people. He believes that “latter-day saints” offer a much-needed example at a time when Christianity is under threat from secularism and rival religions.
Abolishing the need for miracles would speed up the canonisation of some of the Pope’s favourite candidates, including Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was beatified last year. It could also revive plans to beatify Robert Schuman, the French-born founder of the EU, shelved earlier this year because of lack of evidence that anyone had been cured after praying to him.
The Pope last streamlined the beatification and canonisation process in 1983, when he decreed that martyrs — those killed for their faith — could be beatified without the need for a certifiable miracle.
Yesterday Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Archbishop of Genoa, disclosed that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pope’s ideologial “enforcer” for two decades, had presented a formula for the abolition of the “the miracle clause” to the Pope. Cardinal Bertone said that there was a growing feeling in the Vatican that the need for miracles for both beatification and canonisation was “anachronistic”.
At present, candidates for beatification, which confers the title “Blessed” and is the penultimate step before sainthood, must be shown to have performed at least one miracle after death by curing the terminally ill in response to prayers of intercession. For sainthood, evidence of at least two miracles is required. Claims of miraculous cures are examined by a panel of five medical experts at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, a Vatican body.
The panel, drawn from a pool of a hundred doctors and specialists, must conclude that the cure was “sudden, complete and permanent” and had no scientific explanation. Cardinal Bertone said what mattered was not whether saints had performed miracles but whether they had displayed “heroic virtues” and led an exemplary Christian life.
Il Secolo XIX, the Genoa newspaper, said the proposed “revolution in saintmaking” would upset traditionalists who regarded miracles as “one of the cornerstones of the Catholic faith”.
The Church's (pope's) determination of sainthood is an exercise of Its infallible teaching authority.
But novelties are not magisterial teachings. The Pope is not acting as a magisterial teacher when he proposes what is novel. Only when his teachings adhere to the consistent teaching of the Church can his doctrines be said to be binding. It doesn't matter how many pontifical institutes declare, for instance, that Jews need not be converted to Christ, this is not binding in any way, shape or form.
What it is, though, is destructive of the true doctrine--which is deliberately ignored and subverted and allowed to be forgotten. So it goes with most Church doctrines of the past which now languish in neglect. There is no need therefore for any direct assault on doctrinal truths either. It is enough to just suppress and subvert dogmatic truths and to create an environment for the breakdown of the Catholic faith itself.
Believe it or not, Catholics have heard these objections before, and they've all been answered.
If you want to change the hearts of Catholics, you will have to inform yourself regarding these issues.
Some resources:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Summa Theologica
Church Fathers
Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Answers
Scripture Catholic
Biblical Evidence for Catholicism
Saints were originally determined by popular acclamation. Since their existence is known only through oral tradition, no one can know for sure what aspects of their stories are true and which are legendary. Additionally, there are too many saints to give each of them a day, so St. Christopher got bumped for another saint.
Great cartoon, LOTI! Being a new convert, I'm troubled by this seeming lowering of the bar and taking out the miracles prerequisite. My understanding from most of what I read during the years leading up to my crossing of the Tiber was that the Church had very specific criteria for canonizing and usually went through a long and careful process before formally declaring someong a saint.
Yes, all of us are saints in Christ. Those that receive a formal title (St. Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc.) received it because of extraordinary reasons, usually long after their lifetimes.
But then again, I'm just a "dumb" convert (tongue in cheek).
Where does this certainty derive from, the Church, "the pillar and foundation of truth," or your infallible judgement?
Good posts. Repetition is important to learning.
I'd always thought that being formally canonized as a saint (the formal title as opposed to the general position that all Christians are saints) was a long and very careful process that was done in stages. This was done to ensure that the formal title of Saint was given to those that merited it, such as those who did work miracles through the Holy Spirit, made extraordinary contributions to the Church, etc. At least that was what I read over the six years that lead to my crossing of the Tiber. I guess I'll be reamed for being a traditionalist on this issue, but I do not think this lowering of the bar, so to speak, should even be considered, much less implemented.
The formal title of Saint is meant for those who are extraordinary examples of holiness, faith, hope, charity, wisdom, and perseverence; people we were to look at for role models in living the Christian life and to help us in our walk. There are saints form all walks of life and all sotrs of personalities, so each of us could find people who have gone before us to relate to.
At least, that was my understanding from what I read during my six years of moving closer to the Catholic Church. But then again, I'm just one of those "dumb" converts, what the heck do I know (tongue in cheek).
One of the modernist tricks, after all, is to cite preconciliar sources to urge conformity to postconciliar doctrines that would have sent those sources climbing up a wall. Modernists in particular like to cite Pius X or Pius XII--in support of novelties that would have horrified them.
At the same time the very people who do this, trash Trent and the Syllabus of Errors and whatever else preconciliar popes supported. It only works one way, apparently. The New Religion feels no compulsion to honor the past in any way--except when necessary to bring ordinary Catholics into strict obedience with its own false agenda.
If this is true now why was it not true before now.
What has changed?
Confusing and rather laughable.
What's next?
Flame away!
And a merry Christmas to you too!
In fact, this is probably a typical Vatican trial balloon. When it finds the reaction is too strongly against, Rome will pull back its horns and wait for a more opportune moment. But the report is still interesting as a guage of Vatican thinking.
Why not just read the Bible? God will change the hearts of Catholics or any other denominational worshiper, (by that I mean those who worship their denomination).
Cranking out saints to strengthen the religion is like cranking out greenbacks to strengthen the economy.
Pope Piux XII also proclaimed an infallible dogma - the Assumption of Mary.
I thought that the miracles could be any kind of miracle -- it's just that medical miracles have always been the easiest to prove.
I do not take this saint hood stuff seriously at all, but obviously Catholics do. This recent move reminds me of how far knighthood has fallen. Are we going to see Saint Elton John next? Saint "Rebel Billionaire" ?
When a saint is declared by the Pope, it's considered to be infallible because it's actually the Holy Spirit who decides who's to become a saint and who isn't. If the Holy Spirit decides someone up for sainthood shouldn't get it (for whatever God's reason is -- not necessarily because they're not in Heaven), the process will be stopped somwhere along the line. That's how people end up with the titles of Servant of God, Venerable, and Blessed and never advance to Saint. The Holy Spirit stops it.
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