Rev.Fr.A.Calderon - Canonization. Todays Papal Magisterium.pdf - TEOLOGIA - antonif

CANONIZATION

R e v . F r . a l v a r o c a l d e r ó n

IN T ODAY ’ S P APAL M AGISTERIUM

The Church has always rendered a public cult to

her saints, ﬁrst to the martyrs and later, from the fourth

century onwards, to the confessors. Although only

the pope has authority to judge whether the universal

Church may honor a servant of God as a saint, during

the ﬁrst ten centuries they were canonized by the piety

of the Catholic people, more or less directed by the

bishops and with the implicit consent of the Roman

pontiffs. But as there were abuses and negligences, the

popes progressively exercised a greater control over

these processes, and ended by reserving for themselves

the faculty of canonizing saints. The ﬁrst document to

mention this is a decretal of Pope Alexander III, in

1170.

The exemplary life of the saints is one of the notes

that distinguish the Church from false religions, and

to counter those who deny it, the procedure by which

the popes canonize saints has been always extremely

rigorous. Until 1588, canonizations came under the

Roman Rota, performed in the manner of a judicial

process between a “postulator” defending it, and a

“promoter of the faith” opposing. In 1588, Pope Sixtus

V established the Sacred Congregation of Rites (SCR),

which had exclusive control over these processes and

uniﬁed and perfected the procedures to be followed.

Pope Urban VIII, in 1625, forbade any kind of cult to

anyone who has not been beatiﬁed or canonized by the

Holy See, except in the proven cases of immemorial

cult. The procedure, enriched by the experience of

centuries, is described in its essentials in the 1917 Code

of Canon Law . Later, in 1930, Pope Pius XI established

the Historical Section for ancient causes, promulgating

in 1939 the norms to follow in these cases, and Pope

Pius XII established a commission of medical experts.

Until that date, the procedure was in two stages:

1) that which ended with the beatiﬁcation , itself divided

into two stages, the ordinary process and the apostolic

process; 2) that which ended with the canonization .

The ordinary process, so called because it was

realized under the authority of the diocesan bishop,

was directed to present the cause before the SCR. It

consisted in three steps: 1) the careful search for all

the writings of the Servant of God; 2) the informative

process, which attempted to establish the reputation of

sanctity; 3) the process of absence of cult, according to

the decree of Urban VIII. Before going ahead with the

informative process, the writings had to be sent to the

SCR to be rigorously examined.

To bring to an end deﬁnitively a cause of canonization, it is

not necessary that the writings of the Servant of God contain

formal errors against dogmas or morals; it is sufﬁcient if in

them are found suspicious novelties, frivolous questions,

or some singular opinion opposed to the teachings of the

Fathers and the common opinion of the faithful. 1

The apostolic process, realized under the authority

of the pope by the SCR, had two series of procedures:

instruction and recognition. The instruction was

performed in the diocese, by command of the SCR,

THE ANGELUS • June 2005

CANONIZATION

IN T ODAY ’ S P APAL M AGISTERIUM Response of His Holiness

Benedict XVI for the

Examination of the

Cause for Beatiﬁcation

and Canonization of

the Servant of God

John Paul II

and comprised two steps: ﬁrst, the process of reputation

of sanctity was repeated, and afterwards the virtues (or

martyrdom) and the miracles were examined in particular.

The recognition was performed in Rome, and it included four

steps: 1) on the heroism of virtues; 2) on the martyrdom and

its cause; 3) on the miracles; and 4) the last session, called “de

tuto” because in it was decreed that the canonization could

proceed “with certainty.”

For the canonization there were no new processes or

revision of the previous proceedings. Only two conditions

were necessary: the beatiﬁcation and the approval of two

new miracles. The postulator had to present the proofs of

the new miracles and ask for the resumption of the cause. If

the SCR approved them, a new decree “de tuto ” determined

that the canonization could go ahead. There was still a

triple consistory in which the pope met with the cardinals

and bishops. Finally, if that was his will, the Roman pontiff

dictated the bull of canonization, dating it on the day of the

solemn liturgical ceremony in the basilica of St. Peter in the

Vatican.

In 1967, Pope Paul VI reorganized the Roman Curia

by his apostolic constitution Regimini Ecclesiae Universae ,

which affected also the SCR, but without any signiﬁcant

modiﬁcation of its procedures. The ﬁrst important

modiﬁcation was made by the motu proprio Sanctitas

Clarior , on March 19, 1969. By it, the pope delegated

to the bishops and episcopal conferences the necessary

authority to introduce the causes and perform the processes

of instruction, which had been until then reserved to the

At the request of His Most Eminent and

Reverend Cardinal Camillo Ruini, Vicar

General of His Holiness for the Diocese of

Rome, the Supreme Pontiff BENEDICT

XVI, taking into consideration the

exceptional circumstances put forward

during the Audience granted to the same

Cardinal Vicar General on April 28, 2005,

has dispensed the ﬁve-year waiting period

following the death of the Servant of God

John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła), Supreme

Pontiff, so that the cause of Beatiﬁcation and

Canonization of the same Servant of God

can begin immediately. Notwithstanding

anything to the contrary.

Given in Rome, from the See of this

Congregation for the Causes of Saints, May

9, 2005.

Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, C.M.F.

Prefect

Archbishop Edward Nowak,

Titular Archbishop of Luni

Secretary

THE ANGELUS • June 2005

The talk about canonizing

Pope John Paul II raises the

question about how this used to

be done and is done now.

Roman Congregation. The processes were reduced

to three: 1) on the writings of the Servant of God; 2)

on the life and virtues, or on the martyrdom; 3) on

the miracles. Until then, the processes of instruction

were performed by representatives with dimissorial

letters from the SCR. Now, if the bishop can establish

a diocesan tribunal with specialized ofﬁcials, he can

instruct there the processes; if not, he must have

recourse to the tribunals established ad hoc by the

Episcopal Conference. Msgr. Antonelli, secretary of

the SCR, said that these innovations “undoubtedly

opened a new era in the history of the causes of

beatiﬁcation and canonization.” 2 Two months later,

by the apostolic constitution Sacra Rituum Congregatio ,

May 8, 1969, Pope Paul VI divided the SCR into two

congregations, one “for the Divine Worship” and the

other “for the Causes of Saints,” giving to the latter an

organization attuned to the new procedures.

The second important modiﬁcation of the

processes came with the apostolic constitution Divinus

Perfectionis Magister , of Pope John Paul II, published

on January 25, 1983, together with the apostolic

constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges, by which the

1983 Code of Canon Law was promulgated. This new

legislation, completed with a decree of the Sacred

Congregation for the Causes of Saints (Feb. 7, 1983),

replaced totally the previous laws, as the 1983 Code

does not legislate on these matters–Canon 1403 §1

says that “the causes of canonization of saints are

regulated by a particular pontiﬁcal law.” Following the

line established by Pope Paul VI, a double objective

was intended. The ﬁrst was practical:

After the recent experience, it has appeared to Us opportune

to revise further the process of instruction and reorganize

this Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in order to

respond to the demands of the wise and to the desires of our

brothers in the episcopate, who many times have required

the easing of the procedures, although keeping always

the soundness of the investigation in such an important

matter.

The second was doctrinal:

We think also, in the light of the teachings of the Second

Vatican Council on collegiality, that it is convenient to

involve the bishops more with the Apostolic See in the study

of the causes of saints

Now the pope grants to the bishops the right to

introduce the causes of canonization and instruct

the processes, without the authorization from the

Roman Congregation that was still required under

Paul VI. It is no longer necessary to submit all the

writings to a theological examination, but only

those that have been published; the theological

censors are appointed by the bishop; the manner of

deposition of the witnesses has been simpliﬁed; the

ancient process of “no cult” has been reduced to a

simple visual inspection, by the bishop, of the places

where such undue cult might have been rendered.

Once the process of instruction is ﬁnished, its acts

are sent to Rome. The Sacred Congregation for the

Causes of Saints studies them “in depth”: it veriﬁes

that everything has been done according to the

rules; it prepares a report or “ positio ” on the virtues

or martyrdom, and another on the miracles, to be

examined by theological consultants and experts,

who, in turn, will present their conclusions in

reports to be discussed in the meetings of cardinals

and bishops. Finally, the whole is submitted to the

judgment of the Roman Pontiff.

It has to be noted that the new legislation does

not mention beatiﬁcation as an intermediate stage.

According to the canonists, it would leave open–in

order to promote collegiality–the possibility of giving

back to the bishops the authority to beatify that they

had in the ﬁrst centuries. 3

If we make a sweeping comparison between what

canonizations were in the papal magisterium of the

past, and what they are supposed to be according

to the new legislation, we may summarize the

differences by saying that today they are no more an

“extraordinary” event in the activity of the Roman

Pontiff.

They are not “extraordinary,” ﬁrstly, because

the simpliﬁcation of the procedures has increased

the frequency of canonizations in such a manner

THE ANGELUS • June 2005

that they are no longer anything uncommon in the

life of the Pope. According to the Index ac Status

Causarum , published by the Sacred Congregation for

the Causes of Saints in December 2000, from Pope

Clement VIII (1594) up to Pope Pius XII inclusive

(1958), the SCR canonized 215 saints, approximately

one every two years. Pope Pius XII canonized 33

saints in his 19 years of pontiﬁcate. Pope Paul VI

made 3 canonizations before the ﬁrst simpliﬁcation

of the process (in the ﬁrst ceremony, he canonized

the 22 Martyrs of Uganda), and 18 in the following

years (among them the 40 English Martyrs), a total

of 81 canonized saints. With Pope John Paul II the

frequency increased noticeably. In his ﬁrst ten years

of pontiﬁcate, he canonized 254 blessed (among them,

the 103 martyrs of Korea), and beatiﬁed 300 servants

of God, a majority of them martyrs (60 from the 20th

century). In 1999 those canonized by the present

pontiff were already 295, and the beatiﬁed 934. Since

1999, the pace of canonizations has accelerated. Padre

Pio was the 462nd saint canonized (June 16, 2002) by

Pope John Paul II. On June 13, 1994, he explained:

Sometimes it is said that today there are too many

canonizations. This not only reﬂects the reality that, thanks

be to God, is as it is, but it also corresponds to the desire

manifested by the Second Vatican Council. The Gospel has

spread so much out into the world, and so deeply rooted is

its message, that precisely the great number of beatiﬁcations

vividly reﬂects the action of the Holy Ghost and the vitality

that springs forth from Him in that ﬁeld which is more

essential for the Church, holiness.

But if the canonizations have ceased to be

“extraordinary” events because of their frequency,

this must mean something regarding their theological

nature. Theologians call “extraordinary” magisterium

of the pope, ﬁrstly and principally, the ex cathedra

deﬁnitions of matters regarding faith and morals.

His other activities, either regarding doctrine , such

as the teachings given in discourses and encyclicals,

or regarding concrete facts , such as the disciplinary

decisions, constitute the ordinary papal magisterium.

In questions of doctrine , the pope is infallible in

his extraordinary magisterium, that is, when he

gives deﬁnitive sentence ex cathedra . The other

teachings, given in an ordinary manner, are not by

themselves infallible, although they may become

so if they acquire an equivalent weight by their

frequent repetition or because they end by imposing

themselves on the whole Church. In questions

regarding concrete facts , the pope is not infallible. St.

Thomas Aquinas says that “in sentences relative

to particular facts, that is, regarding possessions,

crimes and similar things, there is the possibility of

error in the judgment of the Church, on account of

false witnesses.” 4 Although the canonizations have

as object a concrete fact (that is, that such Christian

man or woman attained holiness and is in heaven),

nevertheless, given the manner in which the saints

have been proposed to the people’s veneration

by the magisterium, theologians in the past have

considered canonizations as something intermediate

between doctrinal sentences and those regarding

concrete facts, and they are of the opinion that those

canonizations are also infallible. In the text we have

quoted above, St. Thomas Aquinas continues:

The canonization of saints is something intermediate

between these two [kinds of sentences]. As the honor we

render to the saints is a profession of faith by which we

believe in the glory of the saints, it has to be piously held

that in this the judgment of the Church cannot err.

Do we still have to consider them so today, in spite of

their having become an “ordinary” occurrence, as acts

belonging to the “extraordinary” papal magisterium?

To discern whether an act belongs to the ordinary

or to the extraordinary papal magisterium, we have

to apply the following theological criterion. The gift

of infallibility does not depend on the efforts the pope

uses to ascertain the truth of his acts, but only on the

assistance of the Holy Ghost, to Whom the pope has

recourse out of his own free will. Nevertheless, in

each case, to avoid tempting God, the pope acts as

any other human teacher, humano more . This means

that, when the Pope teaches in an ordinary manner,

without any very special diligence or solemnity, he

does not intend to be infallible; but when he is to give

a deﬁnitive sentence, he inquires, demands advice,

and acts as if he were to avoid any possibility of error

by his own forces. 5 These endeavors, proceeding in

THE ANGELUS • June 2005

the usual human manner, are a clear indication of the

degree of authority that the pope gives to each one of

his acts.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, the popes took

away deﬁnitively from the bishops the faculty to

judge in questions of sanctity and kept the causes of

canonization for themselves, establishing a complex

procedure to determine personally, by means of the

ofﬁcials and organs of the Roman Curia (directly

under their supervision), the reality of the facts

adduced. Then the theologians were able to see

in those acts the full engagement of the pontiﬁcal

authority, judging that those acts were so near

an ex cathedra deﬁnition that they should also be

included among the solemn acts of the extraordinary

magisterium.

Today, the Holy See has given back to the

diocesan bishops the responsibility of judging

the truth of the facts, either by themselves or by

the organs established by them. Considering in

accordance with the rules of human judgments,

humano more , the pope cannot now give a personal

testimony to the truth of the facts, he cannot say:

“I myself give testimony that this person led an

exemplary Christian life, because I have sent people

I trust in to ﬁnd out the facts, and I have had the

facts studied by theologians chosen by me.” Now

his testimony is no more immediate, but mediated

through the bishops: “According to the documents

given to me and trusting the prudence and honesty

of the diocesan procedures, I give testimony that this

person is a saint.” The value of a sentence given in

these conditions is certainly much less, because the

scientiﬁc authority of a diocesan tribunal is less than

that of a Roman Congregation, which chooses its

experts from the best in the whole world. Moreover,

the diocesan bishop is necessarily much more

interested in having canonized saints from his diocese,

and is therefore a less impartial judge than the Roman

Pontiff. Finally, and principally, because whereas in

the case of a sentence about doctrine it is irrelevant

from whom it has been learnt insofar as it is the truth,

a sentence about concrete facts depends completely

upon the correct observation by the witness.

The return to a situation similar to that of the ﬁrst

centuries of the Church–when the pope did not judge

immediately, by himself, but simply conﬁrmed the

judgment of the bishops–has been purposely willed

to promote collegiality. Consequently, as the “human

manner” in which the pope proceeds indicates the

degree in which he engages his authority as Vicar of

Christ, the theological judgment about the degree of

authority of the canonizations will have to change: the

canonizations in today’s papal magisterium should not

be considered as acts belonging to the extraordinary

magisterium of the Roman pontiff, but rather as acts

proper to his ordinary magisterium.

We do not have knowledge of any theological

works on this matter, and while what we afﬁrm

may surprise some Catholics who have had

some theological training in the past, it must be

understood in the context of the new pedagogy of

the magisterium since Vatican II. The ex cathedra

deﬁnitions of the extraordinary magisterium constitute

the most absolute exercise of any authority upon

earth, and contemporary man, under the inﬂuence

of the democratic spirit, feels an instinctive horror

for anything imposed on him without his previous

consent. The last popes have, for that reason, judged

convenient not to resort to the Pythagorean “ magister

dixit ” ( i.e ., “The master says”), but rather to the

Socratic “dialogue,” exercising the magisterium only

in its ordinary manner, trusting in each case on the

assistance of the Holy Ghost to impose the truth

progressively. Even in the act that Pope John Paul II

had endowed with greatest authority, the declaration

on the impossibility of the priestly ordination of

women, he did not decide it by an ex cathedra papal

deﬁnition, but pointed out that already “it had been

previously proposed by the ordinary and universal

magisterium.” 6 It must not, therefore, surprise us

if, as being more convenient for the sensibility of

modern man, the canonizations are today made in the

collegial manner of the ordinary magisterium.

Rev. Fr. Alvaro Calderón, a native of Argentina, was ordained in 1986 by Arch-

bishop Marcel Lefebvre. Since then, he has been teaching Dogmatic Theology

at the Society of St. Pius X’s Seminary in Argentina. This article, translated

by Rev. Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, was ﬁrst published in Tradición Católica, the

bulletin of the Spanish District of the Society.

1 DTC , art. “Canonisation dans l’Église romaine, ” col.1647. Cf. Benedict

XIV, De Servorum Dei Beatiﬁc . bk.II, ch.25-35, 52.

2 L’Osservatore Romano (Apr. 12, 1969). Cf. La Documentation Catholique ,

1969, n. 1539, p.409.

3 Cf. J. Bonet Alcón, Causas de canonización. Introducción y comentarios

al proceso ordinario en la nueva legislación canónica (Ed. Universidad

Católica Argentina, 1993), pp.41-42.

4 Quodlib . IX, last article.

5 John of St. Thomas, De auctoritate S. Pontiﬁcis , Disp.III, Art.2, n.13: “in

the deﬁnition of matters of faith, it is required to proceed ‘ humano modo ’ to

a diligent investigation, which by itself does not offer sufﬁcient foundation

for an infallible deﬁnition, but which under the direction of the Holy Ghost

does so.”

6 Responsum of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (Nov. 24,

1995), on the authority of the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis of Pope

John Paul II.

THE ANGELUS • June 2005

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