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Journalism of Courage
WHY NOW?
Two reasons. First, the Vatican on Monday (April 14) announced that Pope Francis had approved the first step to grant sainthood to Antoni Gaudí, the modernist architect behind the Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona.
Second, Italian teen web developer Carlos Acutis, who passed away in 2006 and was also called “God’s influencer”, will be canonised as a saint during the weekend of April 25 to 27. The Pope made the announcement last November.
In Catholicism, a saint is an example of holiness through their life and actions. A person can only be declared a saint five years after their death. A person “canonised” (more on this below) as a saint is venerated in the Church.
Churches and church-run institutions can be named after saints, Christian children can be named after them, the replicas of the saint can be venerated and festivals can be celebrated in their name. The sites of their birth and date become pilgrimage centres.
Saint Teresa (best known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta), Saint Alphonsa and Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara are some famous saints who were based in India. Pope Francis canonised Saint Devasahayam in 2021, making him the first Indian layman to be granted sainthood.
The Catholic Church follows a four-step judicial process for sainthood, called the “cause”. Through this, they aim to establish the person’s holiness, vetting for holiness in their writings, and looking for evidence that they moved people to holiness and prayer through their example. The entire process can take years or centuries.
The demand to canonise a person as a saint must come from the local community, who have to establish that this candidate lived a saintly life in their midst. The local diocese then constitutes a special body to look into the life of the candidate, and presents the case at the Congregation for the Cause of Saints in Rome for the Vatican’s consideration.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, a specific department for this task, evaluates the case before naming the person a “Servant of God.”
The Dicastery evaluates the life of the Servant of God to find out if they lived a life of “heroic values”. If satisfied, the person is elevated to the status of “Venerable”.
The postulator, a Church official overseeing the canonisation process, will have to establish that a living person received a miracle – a medically inexplicable healing – from God through the Venerable individual.
If this is satisfied, the individual is ‘beatified’ and declared “Blessed” by the Vatican.
The miracle requirement is foregone if the person was a martyr, someone killed in an act of "hatred of faith" as described by the Church.
Canonisation is the final step in the process to declare the person as a saint and designate them as "an example of holiness that can be followed with confidence".
For the person to finally be canonised as a saint, proof of another miracle resulting from the intervention of the candidate must be established.
Acutis, who died in 2006, was beatified in 2020. He is credited with the healing of a four-year-old Brazilian boy battling a serious pancreatic deformity, and a 21-year-old Costa Rican woman near death after a tragic bicycle accident. Church authorities said that the parents of both persons had prayed to Acutis.
The Vatican on Monday recognised “the heroic virtues” and called Gaudí a “Servant of God”. Gaudí had dedicated the last 12 years of his life to building the cathedral. Proof of two miracles that can be attributed to his intervention will be needed before he can be canonised as a saint.
