New Rules For Sainthood

This pope has often been the subject of criticism in this blog. Whether or not those criticisms were valid is subject to debate.  Why criticize the pope when he is only human, trying to the best he could, especially when this blogger does not know how to do his job and where to start?  The papacy is not for those who have chosen to live life as observers and not participants.  This pope is definitely not an observer and expects all priests to be "'shepherds living with the smell of the sheep,' [and not] 'become in a sense collectors of antiquities or novelties.'" [1]  This blogger is, in a sense a collector, not of "antiquities or novelties" but of ideals that stand in stark contrast to the realities of life.  His criticisms of this world's realities are based on a comparison to a dream that exists only in his mind.  In this sense, his frequent dissatisfaction with this pope is not only unrealistic, but perhaps also unfair.

If this blogger is not always thrilled with this pope, that is his problem, not the pope's.  There have been times when this blogger is on the pope's side and this is one of them: tightening the approval process for sainthood.  The entire article on the new rules is quoted below [2] [Emphasis added]:

New rules presented by the Vatican are designed to tighten the process for approving miracles as part of sainthood causes, and to also make sure there’s a clear paper trail behind who’s picking up the tab and how much they’re spending.

The text was approved by Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, in the name of Pope Francis in August and released on Friday.

Italian Archbishop Marcello Bartolucci, the number two official at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presented the highlights of the new measures in a note released by the Vatican’s Press Office.

The new rules include:

To approve a miracle, at least 5 out of the 7 members of the body of medical experts within the congregation must approve, or 4 out of 6, depending on the size of the group, as opposed to a simple majority.

In case a miracle report is rejected on the first go-around, it may only be reexamined a total of three times.

In order to reexamine a miracle claim, new members must be named to the consulting body. 

The president of the consulting body may only be confirmed to one additional five-year term after the original mandate expires.

While in the past payments to experts could be made in person by cash or check, now the experts must be paid exclusively through a bank transfer.

In general, the going rate in sainthood causes is roughly $560 for each of the two medical personnel asked to perform a preliminary review, and about $4200 in total for the seven members of the medical consulting committee.

The new rules are not retroactive, and hence they do not invalidate any beatifications or canonizations performed under earlier procedures.

Bartolucci said work on the new rules began one year ago, around the same time that leaks of confidential Vatican financial documents raised questions about financial practices in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

In his book “Merchants in the Temple,” Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi charged the congregation was among the most reluctant Vatican offices to cooperate with new transparency measures imposed as part of Francis’s project of Vatican reform, and asserted that the average cost of a sainthood cause was about $550,000.

U.S. Catholic officials traditionally have used $250,000 as a benchmark for the cost of a cause from the initial investigation on a diocesan level, to a canonization Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, though that cost can increase depending in part of how many people take part in the canonization ceremony and the logistics of organizing the event. 

In March, Pope Francis had already approved a new set of financial procedures for the congregation, outlining procedures for handling contributions and specifying which authorities are charged with overseeing the flow of money.

Under those measures, while the postulator, or promoter, of a sainthood cause can continue to administer the funds for each cause, the bishop of the diocese or the superior general of the religious order that initiates the cause or another church authority must review financial statements and approve the budgets for each cause.

The rules approved in March also confirm a “Solidarity Fund” created by St. Pope John Paul II in 1983 to help cover the costs of causes where resources are lacking, giving the congregation discretion to transfer unused money from one case into the fund to cover the expenses of another.

This blogger has long suspected that the process of sainthood had been corrupted under JP2 who became a saint under his own rules. [3]  He "canonized more saints in his 26 years as pope than all popes of the previous 1,000 years combined (482, according to the Vatican website)." [4]  This blogger has not heard of any of the 482 saints JP2 canonized other than Pio whose saintliness this blogger doubts. [5]

Another who is less than saintly is Teresa of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).  She had done a certain amount of good work but was she beyond reproach?  This blogger thinks not. If she had been beyond reproach, articles that question her, one of which is quoted in part below, would not have been written [6]:

Mother Teresa seemed to favor the darkly wealthy while offering nothing but prayer to the poor. The study points out how she accepted honors and grants from Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, a man known for the severe mistreatment of his own people while living in a bubble of luxury. When asked to return donated money from the corrupt banker Charles Keating, she remained silent and she also accepted money from Robert Maxwell, later discovered as stolen money. She had millions of dollars transferred to secret accounts to which Larivée asked once again, “Given the parsimonious management of Mother Teresa's works, one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the poor have gone?” When floods and chemical disaster hit her home of India, there were no financial relief efforts to be found.

On one occasion, when she herself was ill, she flew from India to the United States to be admitted to a renowned hospital institution in La Jolla, the Mayo Clinic, near San Diego, but the poorest of the poor whom she served in Kolkata could not even imagine having international medical attention. [7]

Regardless of how financially corrupt and morally questionable were some of the paths to sainthood, saints cannot be decanonized.  The new rules of sainthood therefore "do not apply retroactively; those miracles that have already been certified by review boards will not be re-examined." [8]

If sainthood could be reopened for scrutiny under the new rules, would Pio, JP2 and Teresa be saints today?  This blogger wonders what this pope thinks.  The fact that he found the existing rules to be too loose, requiring tightening, is perhaps a clue indicating that he may not be fully convinced that some of the saints deserve to be saints. Perhaps, he too, sometimes wonder how some of the saints can be mentioned in the same breath as San Francesco d'Assisi, his namesake, and the apostle Saint Peter? Whether one who is a saint today deserves to be a saint, this worldly pope who is well aware of the smell of corruption ought to know.


[1] http://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/pope-francis-priests-should-be-shepherds-living-with-the-smell-of-the-sheep/13439
[2] https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2016/09/23/vatican-tightens-rules-miracles-money-sainthood-cases/
[3] http://www.vatileaks.com/vati-leaks/how-pope-john-paul-ii-organized-his-own-sainthood
[4] https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/04/02/10-ways-st-john-paul-ii-left-his-mark/
[5] http://www.csicop.org/si/show/padre_pio_wonderworker_or_charlatan
[6] https://mic.com/articles/28746/mother-teresa-not-a-saint-new-study-suggests-she-was-a-fraud#.9wePulT9J
[7] http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-31/news/mn-1142_1_mother-teresa
[8] http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=29434