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”.
Exactly. Categorically. Absolutely. Positively.
"Come on down to CRAAAAAAZY JPs!!!!! I've yer got used saints, barely-dead saints, even a few living saints just waiting for beatification! And if you buy these saints now, we'll throw in a couple of visions of the Blessed Virgin for FREE!"
This is the opposite of what Thomas actually says in that article:
Honor we show the saints is a certain profession of faith by which we believe in their glory, and it is to be piously believed that even in this the judgment of the Church is not able to err.
Cardinal Journet summed up the traditional belief on the matter in his book The Church of the Word Incarnate:
Similarly, certain pronouncements concerning contingent facts can be infallibly and irrevocably defined by the Church. She has infallibly declared that the five condemned propositions of Jansenius really figure in his book in an heretical sense; in the canonization of a saint she pronounces infallibly on the holiness of a human life; in giving final approval to a religious order she declares that the new Rule, in virtue of its general tenor—not merely on account of the three vows—is calculated to lead souls to perfection; she can declare infallibly that such and such a treaty is unjust or that a given contract is usurious or simoniacal. And indeed, if the whole Church could be deceived in appreciating how the burden of a book—Jansenius', for instance—stands to that of the Gospel, she could no longer teach men infallibly the doctrine of Christ; if she could go astray in appreciating a life—St. Teresa's for instance—or a monastic rule, or a treaty or a contract, as related to the Gospel teachings, she would no longer be an infallible guide to sanctity, which is nevertheless the ideal of Christian life.Theologians are unanimous in recognizing the infallibility of the Church in the above-mentioned matters. Many make it itself a point of faith. At the Vatican Council a canon had even been prepared with a view to the solemn definition as an article of faith of the doctrine that the infallibility of the Church is not "restricted simply to what is contained in the divine revelation", but "extends also to other truths necessarily required to ensure the integrity of the revealed deposit".
Canonization is, in fact, clearly an ex cathedra judgment:
For the honour of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the fostering of the Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own, after due deliberation and frequent prayers for the divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of our Brother Bishops, we declare and define that Bl. Pio of Pietrelcina, is a saint and we enroll him among the saints, decreeing that he is to be venerated in the whole Church as one of the saints. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Sorry, there's already a patron saint for adultery. Elizabeth of Portugal.
Now that's novel.
The Pope is using his authority, but after due deliberation and frequent prayers for the divine assistance. This planned step would be going against due deliberation. How can you defend this action!?
By getting rid of the miracle requirement, the Pope is getting rid of the wisdom of the market.
If someone leads an amazing life that earns the respect of others, then a movement will develop for sainthood and a lot of Catholics will start praying to that saint. You need to have a lot of people praying to a saint for an unusual event to occur. If the chance of a spontaneous cure for cancer is one in a hundred thousand, then 20 million people praying should do the trick.
The Pope is throwing out market forces at his own peril. If a saint is not worthy of respect, only a few people will pray to him or her, and a miracle is unlikely.
Hey, Unam Sanctam should be commended for this. From the responses on this thread, this plan is already scandalizing Catholics of different stripes.
Sorry if I didn't make that clear (I was just responding to the doubters of the CURRENT canonizations). This proposal is just dumb. If he's a saint, he can manage to get a miracle or two.
I think this article overstates the consideration JP II is giving this - it makes it appear that he's about to implement this rule, but the only actual source just says that a proposal has been presented to him.
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”.
If Cardinal Ratzinger is the one proposing it, then it DEFINITELY has the ear of the Pope.
Good tagline in the context of this thread.
But so did Communion-in-the-hand and altar girls and tamborines and ecumenical town hall meetings and charismania and wreckovation.
Give them some time. They'll get used to it.
Then they'll come back and tell you you're in schism for disagreeing with them.
From time to time it is reported Ratzinger is on the side of tradition. If this is true, he is not to be trusted.
IF canonizations are infallible (and it's disputable), then the sedevacantists scored another point in their argument.
If the See is not vacant, then by virtue of elimination of the position of devil's advocate, the process has been altered and can no longer validate saints with any assistance of the Holy Spirit.
Schism over altar girls? You're kidding, right? That would put the Holy See in schism with itself: "nor require that priests of the diocese would make use of female altar servers, since 'it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar'" (Card. Medina, Letter 2001).
Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despecias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.
We fly to thy protection, O Holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions in our necessities, but ever deliver from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.
So where can I sign up?
Even so, there's at least two saints that were canonized post-Vatican II that I KNOW are saints interceding for us in heaven: St. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. Charbel Maklouf.
You can provide traditional citations for this, right? Odd, but I thought that the Sovereign Pontiff didn't require the assistance of other persons to issue infallible definitions. Perhaps the "Spirit of vatican II" got rid of the traditional doctrine:
Nevertheless, some of the most reverend fathers, not content with these conditions, go farther and even want to put into this constitution conditions which are found in different ways in different theological treatises and which concern the good faith and diligence of the Pontiff in searching out and enunciating the truth. However, these things, since they concern the conscience of the Pontiff rather than his relation [to the Church], must be considered as touching on the moral order rather than the dogmatic order. For with great care our Lord Jesus Christ willed that the charism of truth depend not on the conscience of the Pontiff, which is private - even most private - to each person, and known to God alone, but rather on the public relation of the Pontiff to the universal Church. If it were otherwise, this gift of infallibility would not be an effective means for preserving and repairing the unity of the Church. But in no way, therefore, should it be feared that the universal Church could be led into error about faith through the bad faith and negligence of the Pontiff. For the protection of Christ and the divine assistance promised to the successors of Peter is a cause so efficacious that the judgment of the supreme Pontiff would be impeded if it were to be erroneous and destructive of the Church; or, if in fact the Pontiff really arrives at a definition, it will truly stand infallibly. (Bishop Vincent Gasser, Relatio on the fourth chapter of the Schema Pastor Aeternus at the First Vatican Council)
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