There are several problems on this thread.
Some people want to bind the Church to the Code of Canon Law of 1917, as if it had always existed.
We seem to be forgetting that there are many rules for canonization. There is no single set of rules for the universal Church. If you go to the Eastern Catholic Churches, their rules are very different from our own. Yet, all of these codes of law are promulgated by the one pope. If one pope can promulgate five different sets of rules to govern canonizations according to the culture and needs of each Church, which of the rules is correct and which are wrong. Often, they contradict each other. When we become to legalistic, we get caught in our own trap. Popes rarely canonize Eastern Catholic saints. Yet, they are infallibly canonized. The Patriarchs take care of it and the popes give it their seal of approval. The investigations never cross the pope’s desk. He used to be the Patriarch of the West, not of the Universal Church. He is the Pontiff of the Universal Church; therefore, every canonization has to be approved by him.
Most canonizations ARE ex cathedra. If one reads the rubrics for the rite of canonization or one simply watches a public canonization, you will notice that the rubrics say that the pope is to make the decree from the Chair of Peter. The wording is equally important. He uses three very powerful words: define, decree and command. He leaves no doubt that the person is in heaven and that the faithful must venerate him or her on a certain day of the year and must speak of him or her with all the honor and respect that is due to a saint.
Canonization does not attempt to tell us if a person took the express line to heaven or went to Purgatory. Canonization declares that the person is in heaven NOW and must be inscribed in the canon of the saints. If the Church does not get into the question about who went to Purgatory and for how long, why do we do that on this forum?
What is there to be gained? I see much more to be lost. The faith of people who are simple or who are exploring Catholicism is being harmed by all of this nitpicking. It makes it sound as if a canonization is something so insignificant that everyone can sound in on it and every opinion is equally important or that it’s such a sublime mystery that the pope has to tread gingerly around it, as if he didn’t have the protection of the Holy Spirit in the matter.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NOT CATHOLIC AND THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE CATHOLIC BUT ARE STILL LEARNING, NOW HEAR THIS.
Nothing that has been said in this thread about canonizations has anything to do with the faith, not the amount of time that the Church has to wait, not the number of miracles that the saint must work, not how the person did his or her job as long as he did it virtuously. God does not demand perfection. He demands virtue. All of these rules are promulgated by the pope and any pope can change them at any time. And they have been changed more than 100 times in 2,000 years, because the Church is always looking to make the process more efficient and to protect the Truth.
At the end of the day, the pope says three things that are important. LISTEN UP!
- N . . . is in heaven.
- I define and declare by the authority that Christ gave to the apostle Peter
- I command that N should be inscribed in the book of saints and be venerated
The rest is really wording that can change at any time. He can change saint’s feast day. He can elevate the day to a solemnity or reduce it to an optional memorial. He can make it mandatory for some countries and not for others. He can bypass all the miracles. He can bypass the beatification process. He can bypass the investigation and canonize on his own recognizance and it’s still infallible, because
the pope cannot order the faithful to venerate someone who is not in heaven. He would be ordering the Church to have faith in a falsehood.
The pope does not always have to canonize ex-Cathedra. But they are not less infallible.
The whole argument about St. John XXIII, Bl. Mother Teresa and St. John Paul II is more political than it is about the faith. It’s more about people wanting the Church to operate as they believe the Church should operate.
Let us not forget that
the Church is not run by the consent of the faithful. It is an absolute monarchy. Collegiality does not extend to the laity, clergy or religious, only to bishops and with conditions. As far as canonization is concerned, the bishops can chime in at a consistory or at anytime during the process and the pope can choose to listen or ignore them. He is not the First Among Equals. He is the Bishop of Rome, which makes him the Pontiff. He can do anything that is not contrary to revealed truth and natural law.
