Ask a Priest

Archways Spring 2019

How does the Church decide to call someone a saint? 

The cause for a saint is governed by a very detailed process. It’s part of ecclesiastical law. The process is there, like any legal process, to guarantee the integrity of what it is we’re about, and so that the Holy Father can reach the certitude required to declare someone a saint.

Typically, the road to canonization starts with a gathering of individuals who are convinced of the saintly merits – or in canonical parlance, the heroic virtue – of a person who has died. In the instance of Dorothy Day, for example, John Cardinal O’Connor, who was then the archbishop of New York, began in the 1990s a series of meetings to consider establishing a case – called a cause – for her sainthood. In 1998, he sought the formal approval of her cause from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome, and in 2000 the cause was approved. The Vatican issued a nihil obstat (Latin for “nothing hinders”) and conferred on Dorothy the ecclesiastical title of servant of God.

Once a nihil obstat is obtained, the bishop of the originating diocese announces by decree the initiation of the diocesan inquiry. He also appoints a Vatican-approved postulator, who resides in Rome, to represent the cause there, and two vice postulators to spearhead the work of investigating and promoting the claims to heroic virtue. The vice postulators for Dorothy Day are Msgr. Gregory Mustaciuolo, CEO of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, and George Horton, director of community development for Catholic Charities.


A statue of St. Francis of Assisi

The bishop also appoints a historical commission, which is charged with collecting and reviewing all writings by the servant of God, published or unpublished, and the tribunal, which in this case I am leading along with the promotor of justice, who is charged with ensuring the integrity of the proceedings. The tribunal takes formal testimony from witnesses who knew the servant of God, which is then transcribed and put into a format designated by the Holy See. We will probably end up with approximately 50 witnesses. Before the testimony can be taken, an official set of questions, called the interrogatories, must be approved by the Holy See, and every witness is asked the same questions, whether they can answer or not.

In Dorothy’s cause, we are in the middle of this phase. After the writings and the testimonies have been submitted to Rome along with exhaustive reports on how each reflects on the claim of heroic virtue, the diocese must complete an inquiry on a miracle that occurred through the intercession of the servant of God. In most cases this is a terminal medical condition, or a permanent condition such as blindness, cured as a result of prayer to the servant of God, supported by records and testimony and the fact that there is no earthly scientific explanation for the cure. Reports and documentation of the miracle must also be sent to Rome.

At this point, we enter the Roman phase of the cause, during which the Congregation for the Causes of Saints studies all of the materials presented in great depth and carries out further investigation of its own. Once they have certified the claims of heroic virtue represented in the writings and the testimonies, the Holy See confers the title of venerable upon the servant of God. Following that, if the Vatican’s experts and theologians certify the miracle, the Holy Father authorizes a ceremony of beatification, at which point the candidate receives the title of blessed.

After beatification, one more miracle is necessary, supported and certified by the same process as the first. After that milestone, a ceremony of canonization is performed and a new saint is added to the Catholic canon.

This entire process takes many years, and there is no guarantee that a cause will result in canonization. In the event that Dorothy Day does become a saint, it’s not likely to happen sooner than five years from now.

Fr. Richard Welch, CSsR, JCD 
Judicial Vicar, Archdiocese of New York
Cardinal’s Delegate for the 
Cause of Dorothy Day

View the full Spring 2019 issue here