The official process for declaring someone a saint is called canonization, meaning the person is worthy of inclusion in the canon of the Mass. Prior to the year 1234, the Church did not have a formal process as such. Usually martyrs and those recognized as holy were declared saints by the Church at the time of their deaths. Before the legalization of Christianity in the year 313 by Emperor Constantine, the tombs of martyrs, like St. Peter, were marked and kept as places for homage. The anniversaries of their deaths were remembered and placed on the local Church calendar. After legalization, oftentimes basilicas or shrines were built over these tombs.
As time went on, the Church saw the need to tighten the canonization process. Unfortunately, sometimes figures of legends were honored as saints. Or once, the local church in Sweden canonized an imbibing monk who was killed in a drunken brawl– hardly evidence of martyrdom. Therefore, in the year 1234, Pope Gregory IX established procedures to investigate the life of a candidate saint and any attributed miracles. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V entrusted the Congregation of Rites (later the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints) to oversee the entire process. Beginning with Pope Urban VIII in 1634, various Popes have revised and improved the norms and procedures for canonization.
Today the process proceeds as follows: When a person dies who has “fame of sanctity” or “fame of martyrdom,” the Bishop of the Diocese usually initiates the investigation. (Note that the person must be dead five years before the cause of sainthood is introduced.) The Bishop appoints a Tribunal to examine the evidence and to take testimony of both those who do and do not consider the person a saint. One element is whether any special favor or miracle has been granted through this candidate saint’s intercession. The Church will also investigate the candidate’s writings to see if there is “purity of doctrine,” essentially, nothing heretical or against the faith. All of this information is gathered, and then a transumptum, a faithful copy, duly authenticated and sealed, is submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.
Once the cause is accepted by the Congregation, further investigation is conducted. A Postulator is appointed who continues to gather information, and presents and discusses the cause with the judges of the Congregation. If the candidate was a martyr, the Congregation determines whether he died for the faith and truly offered his life in a sacrifice of love for Christ and the Church. In other cases, the Congregation examines to see if the candidate was motivated by a profound charity towards his neighbor, and practiced the virtues in an exemplary manner and with heroism. Throughout this investigation the “general promoter of the faith,” or devil’s advocate, raises objections and doubts which must be resolved. During this time, the Postulator composes a positio— a biography, legal brief, and scholarly position all in one.
The positio is then presented to a panel of nine theologians, who examine the case and vote whether the person truly exhibited “heroic virtue.” Six positive votes sends the cause to the larger meeting of the Congregation of bishops and cardinals. A two-thirds positive vote then sends the cause to the Holy Father who examines the case. If the Holy Father decides that a candidate is declared to have lived life with heroic virtue, he declares him “venerable.”
The next step is beatification. A martyr may be beatified and declared “blessed” by virtue of martyrdom itself. Otherwise, the candidate must be credited with a miracle. In verifying the miracle, the Church looks at whether God truly performed a miracle and whether the miracle was in response to the intercession of the candidate saint. Once beatified, the candidate saint may be venerated but with restriction to a city, diocese, region, or religious family. Accordingly, the Pope would authorize a special prayer, Mass, or proper for the Divine Office honoring the Blessed.
After beatification, another miracle is needed for canonization and the formal declaration of sainthood. Once this miracle is substantiated, the Pope may declare the person a saint. When the Holy Father canonizes, he acts infallibly: He, as the Successor of St. Peter, makes an irrevocable decision binding for the universal Church, and in this matter of faith and morals, presents and declares this person worthy of veneration.
However, we must not lose sight that this thorough process exists because of how important the saints are as examples for us, the faithful who strive to live in the Kingdom of God now and see its fulfillment in Heaven. Vatican II declared, “God shows to men, in a vivid way, His presence and His face in the lives of those companions of ours in the human condition who are more perfectly transformed in the image of Christ. He speaks to us in them and offers us a sign of this kingdom to which we are powerfully attracted, so great a cloud of witnesses is there given and such a witness to the truth of the Gospel. It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; we seek rather that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 50).