Which saints in heaven?

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rohanrayan

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I get the concept of prayer to saints in theory, but one question I have is how does the Catholic Church judge if someone is in heaven? By judging that someone is in heaven arent we taking the role of God in some sense?
 
rohanrayan said:
how does the Catholic Church judge if someone is in heaven?
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A life of heroic virtue and heavenly confirmation in the form of at least one or two after-death miracles attributed to the person.
 
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Here is process of canonisation in Catholic Church:
http://www.usccb.org/about/public-affairs/backgrounders/saints-backgrounder.cfm
Church isn’t deciding who is in Heaven so she isn’t taking role of God in that way.
Canonization in the Catholic Church is quite another thing. The Catholic Church canonizes or beatifies only those whose lives have been marked by the exercise of heroic virtue, and only after this has been proved by common repute for sanctity and by conclusive arguments. The chief difference, however, lies in the meaning of the term canonization, the Church seeing in the saints nothing more than friends and servants of God whose holy lives have made them worthy of His special love. She does not pretend to make gods (cf. Eusebius Emisenus, Serm. de S. Rom. M.; Augustine, City of God, XXII, 10; Cyrill. Alexandr., Contra Jul., lib. VI; Cyprian, De Exhortat. martyr.; Conc. Nic., II, act. 3).
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Beatification and Canonization
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I would argue that the church has made some rather questionable assertion of miracles as the basis for declaration of sainthood. One example is the critera regarding incorruptibility of cadavers. Upon closer examination of those cadavers there is hardly true incorruptibility to find. Which begs the question what leniency is given to post mortem decay and still claim “incorrupted”?
 
Michaelangelo said:
I would argue that the church has made some rather questionable assertion of miracles as the basis for declaration of sainthood. One example is the critera regarding incorruptibility of cadavers. Upon closer examination of those cadavers there is hardly true incorruptibility to find. Which begs the question what leniency is given to post mortem decay and still claim “ incorrupted ”?
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Can you please post source of this? Because it seems lile you missunderstood some things, unintentionally I hope.
 
More evidence of the skeptic that won’t accept the evidence.
 
Miracles! Miracles must be attributed to the Saint. And the Church does not declare with absolute certainty - only to a moral certainty.

Huge difference.
 
Well I don’t see problem with Church’s word in that or any other thing. I cannot help you.
Tongue stayed incorrupted after his death in 1231.until today, and you see that as problem because you don’t think it is incorruptibility?
I am sure that Church had really long and good thought to make criteria in procedure of recognising incorruptibility.
You are not first who don’t agree with Church in something…
 
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A decayed tongue is hardly incorrupt more than stinking minced meat is incorrupt. A quick glance at that displayed tongue reveals that it does not look like our tongues. Which supports my assertion that there is a pretty hefty leniency given to the criteria for what being incorrupt is.
 
If you take a look at that tongue and say that it looks incorrupt then I can only conclude that you and I have very different standards for that term. And after having spent quite some time around cadavers I think I have a rather decent foundation for my standard. But this was just one of the issues I realized that I no longer could sign on the dogmas.
 
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Michaelangelo said:
The cadaver Anthony of Padua was seen as incorrupt when he was exhumed despite that all that remained were part of his tongue and some bones. This is a prime example of the leniency given when judging if a cadaver is incorrupt.
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St. Anthony’s cadaver was hardly the deciding criteria for the Church wanting to make him a saint. Can you please explain your argument for why St. Anthony would NOT be in Heaven? I’m quite interested in hearing how you think the Church got it wrong in his case.

Wikipedia explains the finding of St. Anthony’s remains as follows:
When his body was exhumed 30 years after his death, it was found turned to dust, but the tongue was claimed to have glistened and looked as if it were still alive and moist; apparently a further claim was made that this was a sign of his gift of preaching.[9]
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St. Anthony’s tongue still exists and is on display in Padua for people to see it intact today. Nevertheless, the “miracles” relied on for sainthood are not simply the fact that someone’s body or body part survived the grave. St. Anthony was actually canonized one year after his death, while the exhumation of his remains took place 30 years later after his canonization was already in place for three decades.

Therefore, St. Anthony’s Tongue had absolutely nothing to do with his being made a saint by the Church.
Your argument is invalid.
 
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I don’t go around relics and incorrupted bodies of saints to judge is it or not what I think it should be.
Have you ever seen a dead body after 5 years? Probably not because there is nothing to see, after shorter time it is just bones and later not even that. The tongue of saint Anthony is incorrupted in supernatural way.
St.Anthony’s tongue maybe isn’t incorrupted by your criteria BUT if you think it is wrongly judged well write a letter and elaborate your concerns.
Incorruptibility is not wrongly judged by Church, your expectations are wrong. Unfortunately.
I wish you to start looking for truth. Start with right criteria.
 
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St. Anthony’s cadaver was hardly the deciding criteria for the Church wanting to make him a saint. Can you please explain your argument for why St. Anthony would NOT be in Heaven? I’m quite interested in hearing how you think the Church got it wrong in his case.
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I never claimed it held a stronger position over other factors. I merely said it was one of the factors suporting his sainthood. Since I argue that there is a huge leniency for what is considered incorrupted and I most certainly do not consider that tongue to be incorrupt, I do not consider this a valid factor for claiming anything supernatural. I fail to see how I could argue for or against someone being in heaven, given the data at hand.
St. Anthony’s tongue still exists and is on display in Padua for people to see it intact today.
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Intact and incorrupt are hardly the same. An almost black, shriveled tongue is not incorrupt in my book.
Nevertheless, the “miracles” relied on for sainthood are not simply the fact that someone’s body or body part survived the grave.
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Which has never been claimed by me.
St. Anthony was actually canonized one year after his death, while the exhumation of his remains took place 30 years later after his canonization was already in place for three decades.
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I know.
Therefore, St. Anthony’s Tongue had absolutely nothing to do with his being made a saint by the Church.
Your argument is invalid.
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It is very much seen as a strong support for his sainthood. So I think my argument stands. I will present other cases where the cadaver was exhumed before the declaration of sainthood.
 
Sorry if I was a bit unclear. This was one of the factors that made me realize I could no longer sign on the dogma of infallibility.
 
Having worked in a morgue I can actually say that I have seen plenty of cadavers. And yes even after being long dead. So I might actually have a little better understanding on the matter than you think. 😉
 
@Michaelangelo So can you explain me what happens to body after 7-8 centuries of being dead???
The thing you saw many dead bodies doesn’t help in this “discussion” nor it helps you to understand incorruptibility in Catholic Church as I can see. You are not first who is trying to “prove” that Church has error in decisions and judgement. Nor this is your scientific objective approach to this theme.
What is the point of your questions if you don’t accept answers you get? For now it goes nowhere.
 
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Michaelangelo said:
It is very much seen as a strong support for his sainthood. So I think my argument stands. I will present other cases where the cadaver was exhumed before the declaration of sainthood.
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Your argument would be better supported if you could find a case where the incorruptibility was heavily relied upon in pronouncing sainthood. In modern times, it is not relied upon; indeed, some non-martyr saints have been canonized even where there are zero bodily remains left in the grave (St. John Henry Newman being the latest example).

I don’t know if there are cases where it was relied upon in previous centuries before the modern canonization process was adopted. However, St. Anthony of Padua is not one of those cases, since he was canonized so swiftly after death. Those who would point to his tongue having survived as some sort of proof of his sainthood are expressing their own opinion, not that of the Church, since the Church proclaimed him a saint extremely fast, without waiting at all to see if his body decayed.

Perhaps you can find a better case for us to discuss the incorruptibility issue supporting sainthood. Although like I said I don’t know if one exists, since generally the evidence relied upon for sainthood is evidence of a life of heroic virtue and after death, miracles of a medical nature for others, not the preservation of their own body.
 
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