Saints

The Institutionalization of Sainthood

The earliest saints were popularly declared as such; women and men unofficially canonized by Christi ans who took it upon themselves to venerate men and women they believed to embody heroism. Thus, the earliest devotions to saints were popular and lay run rather than institutionally directed. Always alert to an imbalance of lay-official church power and seeking to assert clerical authority, clerics moved to institutionalize the process of making a man or woman a saint. The institutionalization of [Page 1115]sainthood began in 1170, when Pope Alexander III declared that it was the pope, not the people, who would control the process of canonization as well as the devotions to the saints. Thereafter, in the Roman Catholic Church, from the 12th century to the present, the path to sainthood includes a three-step process of discernment:

• 1.
  Examination: This is the preliminary process, during which a commission examines the candidate's life on earth and determines if she or he is a worthy candidate.
• 2.
  Beatification: If the candidate is shown to have one miracle attributed to her or him, the church beatifies the individual, in effect recognizing the saint in question as blessed.
• 3.
  Canonization: If the candidate in question is shown to have one additional miracle attributed to her or him, the person is officially made a saint and recognized to reside in heaven.

The Catholic Church sees its saints as those who possess heroic virtue and who are special in the eyes of God. Both Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church hierarchies recognize saints as humans who are not exempt from sin but who have led overwhelmingly holy lives. The saint's lifetime of good deeds, heroic virtue, and special holiness distinguishes him or her from mere mortals. The process of institutionalizing devotions to saints continues to evolve. Since 1588, the Vatican has had a specially designated department for saint candidates—the Congregation for Causes of the Saints—which sorts through the documents that have been submitted. The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy's definition of who should be canonized as a saint has changed with the times, sometimes paralleling public opinion and at other times diverging from it.

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