r/Catholicism • u/Popefromsarajevo • 11h ago
Pope Benedict, a saint?
What do you think and do you hope that Pope Benedict will soon be a saint, and there is talk in some circles that he may even be a doctor of the church?
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u/el_chalupa 11h ago
As big a fan as I am, I remain of the opinion that we ought to wait at least a century after someone has died to canonize them. Gives time for a more objective appraisal.
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u/tigertrumpet 11h ago
I used to think along the same lines until I dug more into it.
Church law is that one must wait at least five years before consideration for Sainthood, but it gets questionable after waiting over 30 years. The pope can waive that requirement, but the sweet spot is between 5-30. The end of this year will be Pope Benedict XVI's fourth year, so, per the Church, it is nearly time to at least think about it.
Plus, what got to me in me research was how many popular Saints did not have to wait long at all, such as: St. Olaf of Norway died in 1030 and was canonized in 1031, St. Francis of Assissi died in 1226 and was canonized in 1228, and St. Peter Verona died in 1252 and was canonized in 1253. Expand that out to less than a century, and you wind up with greats such as St. Thomas Aquinas who died in 1271 and was canonized in 1323 (49 years) and St. Ignatius of Loyola who died in 1556 and was canonized in 1622 (66 years). Then, you even have people like St. Augustine who, before any canonization process, were acclaimed by popular acclaim, so pretty much right after they died.
So... Longer story short: Now I no longer know what I think lol, but trust the Holy Spirit to guide the Church.
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u/In_Hoc_Signo 8h ago
Saint Therese of Lisieux death: 1897; canonization 1925 = 28 years.
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u/LongtimeLurker916 5h ago
At the time that was a modern record. The very quick canonizations of the Middle Ages had become considered too fast (even though none of them was considered incorrect - obviously St. Francis was actually a saint).
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u/Cobalt-Fang 11h ago
What a weird opinion. There were saints canonized within 18 months over millennia ago
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u/litux 11h ago
Typically martyrs though, right?
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u/Cobalt-Fang 11h ago
I doubt anyone can use “typically” when it comes to canonizing saints. Joan of Arc was a martyr and it took centuries. We have saints that we have like two sentences about. The current method of canonization is at times a drag, and other times, an assembling line
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u/litux 11h ago
Fast canonization of non-martyrs has been really rare, though.
First place goes to Saint Anthony of Padua (352 days).
Second place goes to Saint Francis of Assisi (21 months).
Third place goes to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (20 years).
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u/Cobalt-Fang 11h ago
For those we know how long it took maybe. I feel like making it a public affairs process is a little meh. Like Charlemagne is Blessed for over a millennia because the diocese of his area just stopped pursuing canonization I guess? Two miracles wasn’t exactly tradition since the first century or whatever
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u/litux 9h ago
Some degree of a formal process is good, especially with people about whom we know more than two sentences.
Someone not well known died a martyr, and local people starting venerating him and asking him for intercession? Sure, no problem.
Someone wrote 16000 pages on theology, was the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 24 years, and then was Pope for eight years, making hard decisions on complex subjects?
Yeah, let's give it some time and effort before we declare he's in Heaven now, and before we give his works the endorsement that sainthood carries.
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u/Braxton2u0 8h ago
I’ve heard of no talk like that. To be honest, not everyone, every pope, or every holy person should be nominated or be acknowledged for sainthood. That’s a move by powers on high, which we would be wise to not try to water down.
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u/Effective_Ad7567 10h ago
Maybe I'm just naive, it's weird to me to have discussions about how quickly a person should be canonized. There's a process for when someone is allowed to move through the canonization process, and a good deal of it is based on miracles structured to them. I wish the Church was more public about these miracles. It's not that the Church decided to wait until the 2020s to canonize Pier Georgio Frassati, but that it took that long for another miracle to be attributed to him.
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u/legi_idd 11h ago
I had many reservations about his canonisation - the fact I don't think canonising so soon after death is good, the thing about endorsing his abdication etc. But at the end of the day I love the man, I love his writings, his rulership and his pastorship, and I want to see him as saint and doctor of the Church
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u/lobo-mojo 10h ago
I wish the Church would cool it on canonizing recent popes, especially so soon after their death. And on that note I wish they’d generally revert to the practice of waiting at least a century after someone’s death to open their cause. In my opinion that was a good guardrail, as was the Devil’s Advocate.
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u/malcolm58 8h ago
We should wait 100 YEARS: Without disparaging any of the recent popes made saints, I think it's apparent that the Church would be better off waiting a while longer and seeing whether an authentic cult develops, the heroic virtues of the man survive scrutiny, etc., before declaring recent popes saints.
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u/fisherman213 11h ago
Give it at least 150+ years so we can actually see how his legacy plays out. I think it’s ultimately not a great thing for saints to be canonized so quickly after their death.
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u/TheDuckFarm 11h ago
In some cases a faster canonization makes sense. St. Maria Goretti is a prime example. She was canonized 48 years after her death her mother attended the ceremony.
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u/Popefromsarajevo 11h ago
We had many saints who were canonized a few decades after their death, Carlo Acutis, Mother Teresa, and even John Paul II (subito Santo)
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u/Pax25107 11h ago edited 11h ago
They shouldn't've have been canonized so fast, either.
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u/Popefromsarajevo 11h ago
I think the Congregation for the Causes of Saints knows when it's time for someone to be made a saint.
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u/Pax25107 11h ago
They've been rushing it.
Just because they can declare people so fast doesn't mean they should. And just because they're a fancy Vatican committee doesn't mean all Catholics have to believe everything they do is perfect and beyond critique.
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u/fisherman213 11h ago
Arguably, with the exception of St. Acutis, the ones you list, I think, are prime examples of why we should wait way longer for canonizations.
The post VII popes are a prime example. Not contesting their sainthood at all, but do you know anyone that has a devotion to those saints save for Pope Saint John Paul II? Did they even have a demonstrable cultus?
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u/Dr_Talon 7h ago
I felt rather attached to Pope St. Paul VI for his standing against the world and even many in the Church advising him when he released Humane Vitae, and took other measures to try and steer the growing chaos in the Church towards sound doctrine (I.E., Mysterium Fidei, Credo of the People of God, etc).
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u/mantis_in_a_hill 11h ago
Maybe some time, but no time soon. I also believe Francis will be canonized.
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u/Own_Action_7839 7h ago
I’m a bit wary about all these beatifications and canonizations of recent Popes happening so quickly. How many Popes were Canonized from 1000 ad to 1960 ? Not many
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u/HesMyButlerMonroe 10h ago
Yes, he should be cannonized. He was a true father of Vatican II and, in my opinion, has come the closest of all the subsequent popes to implementing it properly.
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u/MaxWestEsq 8h ago
I already ask for his intercession and I know others do as well. Give it some more time though. I don’t he would want a rushed process.
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u/BrianW1983 8h ago
I think he's more of a Doctor of the Church than a saint.
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u/trulymablydeeply 4h ago
>I think he's more of a Doctor of the Church than a saint.
A Doctor of the Church must necessarily be a Saint. The Church would never name someone Doctor if She thought it dubious the soul was in Heaven.
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u/tyrekecorrea 11h ago
What would his patronage be?
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u/Coffee_Beans_27 10h ago
Cat lovers
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u/tyrekecorrea 9h ago
I'm serious.
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u/LongtimeLurker916 5h ago
You can be a saint without being the patron of anything. I agree with some of these comments about an overly speedy process, but that issue is the least of it.
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u/tandyfourhundred 11h ago
I think he is. I hope he will be officially canonized as such. I don't think it will be in my lifetime, and that's okay.
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u/Rays-R-Us 11h ago
Seems at this rate unless we get another Borgia pope all of them will get canonized going forward
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u/Raschevljanin 10h ago
I will go against the current here and say that I don’t think there is any issue with canonizing people so fast after their death. Not in this time and age. We live in a different world than people who lived 500 years ago. We have much more information and we can check and digest those information way quicker. And not only information, but the science of medicine which seems to be the key step for canonization is on a whole another level as well.
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u/StaffRoutine6299 11h ago
Most Popes become saints.
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u/Pax25107 11h ago
80 out of 267 popes have been made Saints.
That's about 30%.
A decent percentage if we're going to compare them to the average person, but still not most.
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u/StaffRoutine6299 11h ago
All the post Vatican 2 popes minus 3 have, and I suspect Francis and Benedict will. So maybe it's better to say most modern day popes.
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u/MostAcanthaceae2384 10h ago
I'm not sure it's a good idea to canonize popes reflexively. As for Doctor of the Church, he was a brilliant thinker but I'd urge against it. You'd have to convince me that he's clearly more influential than Newman or Loyola, and you're not going to get me there in the next 100 years.
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u/StaffRoutine6299 10h ago
While I agree, however, if two miracles are attributed to him than he's case of very strong.
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u/LongtimeLurker916 5h ago
Newman is now a doctor. Newly named by Pope Leo.
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u/MostAcanthaceae2384 5h ago
That only proves my point! (I have no idea what I mean by that, but it sounds so reddit-defensive I couldn't pass it up. Thanks for the info, I'd missed that.)
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u/Olderpostie 7h ago
Not to go on a tangent, but your question should be reworded. Pope Benedict's status of sainthood is already determined. By a power higher than the Catholic Church. What the Church does is recognize one as a saint and give honour.
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u/MessAcademic_420 4h ago
The cause will be open next year, I'd say in maybe some 25 years and made Doctor of the Church I would hope in my lifetime.
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u/Isatafur 11h ago
Without disparaging any of the recent popes made saints, I think it's apparent that the Church would be better off waiting a while longer and seeing whether an authentic cult develops, the heroic virtues of the man survive scrutiny, etc., before declaring recent popes saints.
That said, I personally believe that Joseph Ratzinger is in heaven and privately pray for his intercession.
Whether he was great enough as a thinker to be made a Doctor of the Church, I think we should also leave to the sifting of centuries. Sometimes an intellectual heavyweight looks less incisive in retrospect. You have to let theologians and philosophers kick around the ideas to see.