About sainthood

[Julie_de_Sales]

We generally assume (at least I do) that the saints and the blessed went to heaven right after their death, without passing through the flames of the Purgatory. However, there are some of them who did not.
For example, I read in a sermon of St John Mary Vianney about Purgatory where he says that saint Albert the Great appeared to a friend after his death and told him that he went in the place of purification for a little thought of vanity for his science. Saint Severin, Archbishop of Cologne, had the same treatment because he said in the evening some prayers that he should have said in the morning.
From what I remember reading in the life of St Margaret Mary Alacoque, St Claude de la Colombiere, her spiritual director, was in Purgatory from the moment he died until the moment he was buried.
So now my question arises: when the Church declares a person a saint, what does it mean and is this decision infailable? Does the qualification of saint/blessed guarentees something (at least salvation) or not?

 

[Sarcelle]

We generally assume (at least I do) that the saints and the blessed went to heaven right after their death, without passing through the flames of the Purgatory. However, there are some of them who did not.
For example, I read in a sermon of St John Mary Vianney about Purgatory where he says that saint Albert the Great appeared to a friend after his death and told him that he went in the place of purification for a little thought of vanity for his science. Saint Severin, Archbishop of Cologne, had the same treatment because he said in the evening some prayers that he should have said in the morning.
From what I remember reading in the life of St Margaret Mary Alacoque, St Claude de la Colombiere, her spiritual director, was in Purgatory from the moment he died until the moment he was buried.
So now my question arises: when the Church declares a person a saint, what does it mean and is this decision infailable? Does the qualification of saint/blessed guarentees something (at least salvation) or not?

Unfailable or infallible?

Technically any person who is in heaven, whether directly or via Purgatory is a saint. So yes it is possible that there are saints who have been through Purgatory.

Or.do you just mean canonized saints?

If you do, than it is possible that some canonized saints went through Purgatory first.

 

[Jared2914]

Part of the process of becoming a saint is looking for miracles that happened through the saint’s intercessions. For a saint to intercede, they must be in direct communication with God. That can only happen if they are in heaven. At the moment the prayer and later miracle happened, the saint was in heaven. We know they were in heaven at that point. We don’t know if they were in purgatory before that point. So going to purgatory does not preclude a person from being canonized as a saint later on.