The Holy Year of Jubilee

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 1, 7 January 1925, Page 49

The Holy Year of Jubilee

; ~ The coming Holy Year of Jubilee will witness a number of beatifications and canonijk. sations in Rome. The Sacred Congregation Vfef Rites has been more than usually active at , ; this time in examining the causes of many .;■ servants of God proposed for beatification , and canonisation. This has aroused great #4 interest among Catholics, and created not a little confusion among non-Catholics regarding T the process by which chosen servants of V God are accorded by the Church the titles of Venerable, Blessed, and Saint. ... An instance of this was given recently in ; an article in which the writer* went out of his way to impugn the motives of the English martyrs, and to cast doubt and uncertainty into the minds of his readers about a process that is perfectly simple and intelligible to anyone who will take the trouble ■ to do what this writer evidently did not do — examine the law of the Church. This legislation is to be found in the Codex Juris Canonici, in the decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and in the Letters Apostolic of the Popes. The process to determine whether special recognition be given to certain candidates for the honors of sanctity •: begins in its preliminary stage in the place in which the candidate passed his or her life. Here certain evidence is submitted, and many of the proposed saint's writings are carefully examined. The examination aims at determining two ~ points: first, that the candidate practiced the cardinal and theological virtues in an extraordinary degree, and second, that God has intervened to prove the sanctity of the candidate by miracles wrought through the prospective saint's intercession. The evidence thus collected in regard to the heroicity of virtue and certainty of miracles is submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which carefully examines it. Then if the Cardinals approve, a commission is appointed to introduce the cause of the servant of God, .and a decree to that effect is promulgated signed by the Holy Father. The publication of this decree entitles the servant of God to be called Venerable. All this is not accomplished without much sifting of evidence and many discussions and examinations, consuming usually a long time. Similar meetings and examinations to establish all over again the heroism of virtue and the reality of miracles must 'be gone through in the process of beatification, and again in the process of canonisation. | Beatification, by which the title Blessed is V conferred upon the venerable servant of God (,£ means that the Pope, after a judicial examination of virtues and miracles, permits public worship limited in nature and extent ;to toe offered to him. Canonisation is the : final step. It is an act by which the Church N j after a further examination of - the virtues V. land miracles of the beatified servant of God, declares, in a definite decision, to fi'Nthe whole Church, that he is numbered among the saints, and is to be venerated as such throughout the entire Church; -••■

THE MAKING OF SAINTS

Thus there is a threefold distinction between beatification and canonisation. Beatification is a preparatory act, a step along the way; canonisation is a definitive act, the attainment of the goal. Beatification is a permission to accord worship because of sanctity and consequent beatitude which is morally certain; canonisation as a precept to accord worship because of sanctity and beatitude which have been proclaimed by an authentic and definitive, and probably infallible act. Beatification permits a limited cult of dulia, limited in its nature and extent;

canonisation commands the. full cult of dulia without limitation, and throughout the universal Church. " Catholics honor the saints because of their Divine supernatural gifts which have earned them eternal life, and because they are, the chosen friends of God and the distributors of His graces. But they worship God alone. In the theological language of the Church, the worship, of latria, or strict adoration, is given to God alone; the reverence of dulia, or honor and humble reverence, is paid to the saints; and the honor of hyperdulia, a higher form of dulia, is given on account of her greater excellence to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church erects her altars to God alone, though in memory and in honor of the saints. Exchange. : -' : ",