The canonization process?

[Montie_Claunch]

scince I started looking into Catholicism I have heard about five diffrent ways in which one becomes a saint. How exactly does the process work? And I heard that martyrs attomaticly become saints, Is this true? And if one must be dead before the process starts why was Mother teresha (sp?) called a living saint? And did the church condone this? Thanks for the help.

 

[mercygate]

Montie Claunch:

scince I started looking into Catholicism I have heard about five diffrent ways in which one becomes a saint. How exactly does the process work? And I heard that martyrs attomaticly become saints, Is this true? And if one must be dead before the process starts why was Mother teresha (sp?) called a living saint? And did the church condone this? Thanks for the help.

Montie, “the process” is not about creating a saint. The process is a way by which the Church determines whether a person has, in fact, entered Heaven. Technically, all the holy souls in Purgatory are “saints.” They’re just not finished yet.

“The process” doesn’t have anything to do with the sanctity of the person. You become a saint by the way you live your life. So we could call Mother Teresa a “living saint” because it was pretty clear to everybody that she was a saint because of the way she lived.

After an apparently holy person dies, the Church makes a determination of whether the apparent sainthood was, in fact, *actual *sainthood. Only when the investigation comes up affirmative (according to strict criteria), does the Church declara a person to be a Saint – with a capital “S.”

 

[cameron_lansing]

Montie Claunch:

…How exactly does the process work? . . .

You find details at the Vatican website of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/csaints/index.htm.

The site contains a link to the apostolic constitution of John Paul II treating the topic and the laws that apply. Neither is lightweight reading, but will show the dedicated inquirer how he process works.

 

[ChristianWAB]

mercygate:

The process is a way by which the Church determines whether a person has, in fact, entered Heaven. Technically, all the holy souls in Purgatory are “saints.” They’re just not finished yet.

Am I reading this right? Does the Catholic Church actually profess that they can figure out which “saints” are in Purgatory and which ones have actually made it to Heaven? Wouldn’t only God know for sure who is where?

 

[mercygate]

ChristianWAB:

Am I reading this right? Does the Catholic Church actually profess that they can figure out which “saints” are in Purgatory and which ones have actually made it to Heaven? Wouldn’t only God know for sure who is where?

It isn’t a matter of the Church simply giving a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” signal; it’s just a matter of ruling out the possibility that the person could be anywhere BUT in Heaven. Since we all hope to end up there some day, that really isn’t really so hard to fathom. For example, wouldn’t we all agree that St. Paul made it? Or St. Matthew? So why not Mother Teresa (not yet official)?

Some people have lived lives of such heroic sanctity that the Church is able to declare this beyond doubt. The process is rigorous and conducted from an “I’m from Missouri” standpoint.

Among other things, such as an exhaustive investigation of the person’s personal life, and interviews with everybody from his doctor to his cleaning woman, bona fide miracles must be authenticated by the most formidable standards.

I personally know a cardiologist at a secular medical school – a world authority in his field – who was called in to review a purported miracle cure attributed to the intercession of St. Faustina Kowalska during the process for her canonization. Frankly, I (a layman) could have told them that this case was incurable by reviewing the records, it was so obvious. But the testimony of Valentin Fuster was irrefutable. Absolutely irrefutable: before and after records were extraordinary. Nothing save a miraculous intervention by the Lord himself could account for it.