Why is the Vatican rushing to canonize the conciliar popes?

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Most of them come from the earliest centuries.
The interesting thing also is most of these Saints are not on the universal calendar. They throw the post conciliar popes on the calendar the following year.
 
commenter said:
I’m not sure why the title, “conciliar” popes. Since the Council of Jerusalem have there been any non Conciliar popes?
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Well yah. It is just the most recent Council and many people refer to it as that.
 
Thomasbradley312 said:
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commenter:
I’m not sure why the title, “conciliar” popes. Since the Council of Jerusalem have there been any non Conciliar popes?
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Well yah. It is just the most recent Council and many people refer to it as that.
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When I have seen the term “Conciliar popes”, it was usually in a context that did not emphasize the value either of popes elected after 1957, or Vatican 2. (Not referring to this thread).
 
Beccabush1 said:
Sorry to be a pain but what does this mean? I’m just starting out on the road to converting to the Catholic faith. Also what is Beatified mean?

Thanks
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Hi Becca, glad you are planning to join up with us soon!

The terms refer to the current modern processes for the Vatican declaring someone a saint.

So as not to flood you with too much information, the steps for a person to become a saint are normally as follows:
  1. First, they have to be dead for at least five years and have lived a very holy life, and a group must petition the person’s diocese to open a sainthood cause. If the diocese opens the cause then the person is called “Servant of God” and their life begins to be investigated.
  2. If the investigation shows that the person lived a life of “Heroic Virtue”, they advance to the next step, being named “Venerable”.
  3. Next, the investigation looks to see if the person was either martyred, or alternatively if a medical miracle can be attributed to their intercession. If either of those criteria are met, then the person advances to the next step, being “Beatified” and called a “Beatus/ Beata” or a “Blessed”. This is a statement that it is “worthy of belief” that the person is in heaven.
  4. Finally, if a second medical miracle can be attributed to the person’s intercession, then they may be canonized which means they are named a Saint. This is a statement that the person is certainly in Heaven, so a lot of investigation is done before getting to this point, as it’s the only time the Church formally declares that someone is in Heaven.
The Vatican can waive certain parts of the process; for example, sometimes they choose to canonize a saint without a second miracle, or waive the five-year period after someone’s death so the investigation can start right away.

Hope this helps.
 
The problem with a thread like this is that if a person started posting their objections, it could be considered attacking that pope and would be against forum policy which would get your account suspended. I have thoughts on this, but there’s no way I’ll post them.
 
Thomasbradley312 said:
And that the Church changed since Pius lX in arguing against his canonization is incredibly ridiculous. In that case we probably shouldn’t be rushing to make Saints out of recent popes because what if the tide changes again?
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The issue with Pius IX is not that the Church changed, but that the world changed. Ask any Italian if they admire Victor Emmanuel II or Pius IX more? VE 2 unified Italy by liberating Rome while Pius pushed infallibility through Vatican I. The greatness of Pius’ action has been diminished by Italian unity.

Ask any Jew if it was right to take a child away from his parents because a maid had baptized him? While Pius made an important defense of Church teaching, the world has moved on to recognize religious liberty in a way that diminishes Pius’ actions.

And I mention these precisely because “we probably shouldn’t be rushing to make Saints out of recent popes.” Cutting the post mortem waiting period from 50 years to 5 years was bad enough; waiving the 5 year wait just made it worse.
 
What I am saying about Pius lX is this. He has had exactly as many miracles as John XXlll had. With that in mind, one can wonder why then is one a Saint and the other still is not? Why would the Vatican have skipped forward with a process which already had been reduced from 50 to 5 years? What I am saying in general is, if John XXlll is a Saint, then so is Pius lX.
 
Dovekin probably has a point that Pope John XXIII was not renowned for taking a Jewish child away from its mother and changing its religion to Catholic because a maid happened to baptize the child Christian on the sly. It’s rather politically incorrect. A big miracle would overcome that pothole, but waiving the miracle for Pope Pius IX is not gonna happen.
 
I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Politically correct is not of any concern of mine.
For the sake of the childs salvation the former pope did what was right.
 
Thomasbradley312 said:
So we are to believe only in the past 50 years Popes have been holy?
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Of course not. Authentic holiness gets you to heaven but it doesn’t automatically make you a saint in the RCC-declared sense of the term. It’s my understanding that sainthood only identifies some of the people who are currently in heaven. There are many more people In heaven than those who have been officially declared saints. In declaring someone a saint, the church Is saying it has certainty about these people being there. That’s not to take away from the holiness of those who have not yet been declared saints. To declare one person a saint is not to imply that others who are not declared a saint had no holiness.
 
FiveLinden said:
are there any married men who have been canonised in the last hundred years?
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Most people are mediocre in that regard, so it’s not much of a surprise. It could also be a case where celibacy simply indicates a character that is more prone to it.
 
Welcome, @Beccabush1! Ask all you want—without questions, the Forum would cease to have a reason to exist. 😀 For additional background info on most topics, you’ll find similar threads by clicking on the icon of the magnifying glass.

We have several on board now who are converting. Come join the party!
 
FiveLinden said:
Am I right in thinking that the recent Popes who’ve been canonised or declared venerable outnumber the married, non-martyred men who have been raised to this status over the same period? In fact if we take away martyrs and the fathers of women saints, are there any married men who have been canonised in the last hundred years?
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I think your topic is a bit off-topic to the Pope question. The reality is that we don’t have enough married saints of either gender, especially once you take away martyrs. The main reason for this, as discussed before on the threads, is not so much that the Church objects to marriage, as it is that sainthood causes are primarily pushed by organizations such as religious orders, and the members of the religious orders tend to be single (sometimes never married, sometimes widowed) when they join or found the order. If you were a regular married person raising a family, and you weren’t dramatically martyred, and you didn’t give birth to a saint who usually got to be a saint by becoming a priest, sister, friar, monk etc, then your holiness is more likely to fly under the radar because you don’t have a group to push your cause.

Having said that, there are some male saints of the last 500 years who were not martyred and were married:
  • St. Francis Borgia (canonized 1670) - he was married, but his wife died and he became a Jesuit priest
  • St. Alphonsus Rodriguez (canonized 1888) - he was married with three children; his wife died and all three of his children eventually died, at which point he became a Jesuit priest, taking final vows at age 54
  • St. Louis Martin (canonized 2015) - best known for being St. Therese of Lisieux’ father, and canonized along with her mother; however, obviously he was a man of great personal holiness, as the parents of saints are not canonized for simply giving birth to a saint. He no doubt benefited from having the Carmelites and the devotees of his daughter supporting his cause.
In addition to these, there are a number of married male saints who have been beatified meaning that they simply need one more miracle to be canonized. Some of them have pretty big followings. They include
  • Blessed Karl of Austria (last emperor of Austria-Hungary, was married with 8 children)
  • Blessed Bartolo Longo (lawyer and former Satanic priest who became a third order Dominican and promoted devotion to Our Lady of Pompeii; he was married to a countess who helped with his work)
  • Blessed Frederic Ozanam (lawyer and journalist who founded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which helps the poor, married with one child)
  • Blessed Laszlo Batthyani-Strattmann (Hungarian aristocrat and doctor who helped the poor, was married with 13 children)
These are fairly recent beatifications, so it’s likely that these men will eventually proceed to sainthood as additional miracles are confirmed.
 
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VeryBlessed said:
To declare one person a saint is not to imply that others who are not declared a saint had no holiness.
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That’s a good point, and it’s also important to note that for someone to be a saint, they have to have a large, well-funded organization that will push their cause over the long term. The Vatican doesn’t go out and pick people it wants to put through the sainthood process. Somebody has to petition for the holy person to be made a saint, and the process costs a lot of money.

Obviously nowadays in the case of a deceased recent Pope, it’s not hard to get an organization together and get funding, as Popes have high visibility worldwide and generally have a large number of people who approve of their performance as Pope, or were excited to see them in person when they were alive and visiting in their country, etc.

I also think there has been a trend in recent years to canonize more saints generally and to make the canonization requirements easier. I seem to recall that as recently as the 1980s, there was a requirement for something like 4 miracles before a non-martyr could become a saint. Obviously cutting it back to 2 miracles, or even 1 miracle in the cases where the second one is waived, makes it easier to canonize people and reduces the possibility that a cause will become dormant due to the group pushing it running out of money or energy over a long period of time.
 
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Thomasbradley312 said:
Really? So the Saints on the calendar are bought for basically? That sounds like simony.
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That’s quite a leap. And very unjust. Have you even studied how the canonization process works at all? From your earlier posts, it seems that you have some misunderstandings.
 
Gathering all the evidence, interviewing people, investigating miracles, spreading devotion to the person, etc. takes resources to get done. The simple fact is those with more resources–money, manpower, etc.–can get it done more efficiently than those with less. It’s not like there’s a price tag for a canonization.
 
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