July 26, 2013--Miracles, These Days

With Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII cleared recently to become saints, I wanted to know more about the process.

I have limited experience with saints, knowing most about Saint Teresa of Avila, and was frankly surprised that these two recent popes had moved along toward sainthood so quickly. It took Teresa a full 40 years after her death to be canonized. But then again, everything these days moves along so quickly.

I thus did a little research about sainthood in today's world of Roman Catholicism.

THE LONG ROAD TO SAINTHOOD

For hundreds of years in the church's early history, saints were chosen by public acclaim. Pope John XV led the first canonization in 993, making Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg a saint. Ulrich qualified because he made daily visits to a hospital in Augsburg to wash the feet of poor people.

The Catholic church eventually developed a complicated and usually long process, sometimes spanning centuries, to determine who deserves to be honored as a saint. The Church first formalized its rules for naming saints after the 16th-century Council of Trent.

THE SHORTER ROAD

In 1983, however, Pope John Paul II, eager to give his church more role models, reformed and speeded up the process.

Nowadays the following steps are taken down the formal path to sainthood.

Servant of God describes someone at the start of the process.

Venerable is what a pope proclaims a candidate to be after a local church investigation of the potential saint's life and writings determines there were "heroic" virtues and sufficient "orthodoxy of doctrine." If a panel of theologians at the Vatican, and cardinals of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, give their approval, the candidate becomes "venerable."

Blessed, a title bestowed upon beatification, requires evidence of one miracle, except for martyrs, who can get to this step after having been martyred for defending the Faith. At this stage, a miracle is required for non-martyrs and it must happen after the candidate has died and as a result of a specific plea to the candidate. Most typically, a cure from a serious medical condition after praying to the potential saint. 

Saint is the designation after reports of a second miracle (or a first miracle in the case of a martyr), are verified at various levels, including at the Vatican, and the pope signs off with his approval. The candidate is then "canonized," or made a saint.

In the case of Pope John XXIII earlier this month, Francis, the current pontiff, essentially issued a waiver, holding that it didn't matter that a second miracle hadn't been approved.

IN REGARD TO MIRACLES

In the past, say St. Teresa's day, the road to sainthood was long and took almost forever. In her case, in spite of her numerous visions, ecstasies, writings, Church reform work, and verified miracles, as I noted, it took 40 years after her death before she became a saint. And her miracles including the "fact" that her unpreserved body, after she died, did not--how to put this--decompose or begin to smell. Actually, the opposite--her flesh remained fresh and gave off the scent of roses. This in itself suggests "incorruptibility" and is evidence of potential sainthood.

On the other hand, more recently, much less is expected.

For example, in 2004, the healing of varicose veins after a Brazilian nun who prayed to the late Austrian emperor, Karl I, enabled the monarch to fulfill the miracle requirement for his beatification.

At the same ceremony at the Vatican led by John Paul II, a German mystic, Sister Anna Katharina Emmerick, was also beatified. Her violent visions of Christ's suffering helped inspire Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. In her case, the Vatican concluded that a German nun's recovery from tuberculosis in 1860 miraculously occurred because of Emmerick's intercession.

SOME PATHS ARE FASTER THAN OTHERS

Besides the successful santo subito (sainthood immediately) lobby for John Paul II, a populist call that rose up in the hours immediately following his death in 2005 and saw him beatified six years later, another first-track story along the path to sainthood is that of Mother Teresa.

A favorite of John Paul's who toiled in India for the poorest of the poor, he waived the normal waiting period after her death in 1997 for her beatification process to begin, and in 2003, in only five years, he beatified her.

Now John Paul II, passing muster for sainthood under the new Pope Francis will proceed her to sainthood--the Vatican said recently that he will be canonized by the end of this year while Mother Teresa's case still awaits another miracle to be certified for her to become a saint.