Following one of the articles published on my blog concerning salvation in non-Christian religions, an interesting debate arose in one of the groups in which I take part, in which the subject of the infallibility of canonizations came fully to the fore. It seemed fitting to me to take that debate as a starting point for sharing some information related to the topic.

Definition of Canonization

I will take the definition of what canonization is from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints:

“The doctrine concerning the institutions of beatification (2) and of canonization (3) has not changed in its essentials over the course of the centuries. Their distinction (4), which finds its proper expression in the respective declaratory or constitutive formulas, is clear-cut and essential. Canonization is the supreme glorification by the Church of a servant of God raised to the honor of the altars by means of a decree that is definitive and binding upon the whole Church, engaging the solemn magisterium of the Roman Pontiff. This is expressed unequivocally in the formula: ‘Ad honorem Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis…, auctoritate Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac Nostra… Beatum N.N. Sanctum esse decernimus ac definimus, ac Sanctorum Catalogo adscribimus, statuentes eum in universa Ecclesia inter Sanctos pia devotione recoli debere.’”

Congregation for the Causes of Saints, The Face of the Church Is Renewed in Continuity

The Consensus of Catholic Theologians

The Catholic Encyclopedia explains that the greater part of theologians agree that canonizations are infallible. Among them it mentions Saint Antoninus, Melchior Cano, Suárez, Bellarmine, Báñez, Vázquez and, among the canonists, González Téllez, Fagnanus, Schmalzgrueber, Barbosa, Reiffenstuel, Covarrubias, Albitius, Petra, Joannes a S. Thoma, Sylvester, Del Bene, among many others. They also cite Saint Thomas Aquinas in Quodlib. IX, a. 16, who says:

“Since the honor we render to the saints is, in a certain sense, a profession of faith—that is, a belief in the glory of the saints—we ought piously to believe that in this matter too the judgment of the Church is free from error.”

He also specifies that the object of this infallible judgment of the Pope refers to what is defined, and that the only thing that needs to be indicated is that the canonized person is in heaven.

Excerpts from Some Manuals of Dogmatic Theology

I now share what some manuals of dogmatic theology teach on the subject.

The Manual of Dogmatic Theology by Michael Schmaus:

“At present, it is likewise the common doctrine of theologians that the Church is infallible in the canonization of saints, that is, in the definitive judgment that a man enjoys the vision of God and may be venerated throughout the whole Church as a saint.”

Michael Schmaus, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. IV, The Church, Ediciones Rialp, S.A., Madrid 1960, p. 776

The Manual of Dogmatic Theology by Ludwig Ott likewise holds:

“The object of infallibility

a) The primary object of infallibility consists of the truths, formally revealed, of faith and Christian morals (of faith; Dz 1839).

The Church is able not only to determine and propose in a positive way the meaning of revealed doctrine—giving an authentic interpretation of Sacred Scripture and of the testimonies of tradition, and drawing up formulas of faith (symbols, definitions)—but is also able to determine and condemn as such the errors that are opposed to revealed truth. Otherwise it would not fulfill its mission of being ‘the guardian and teacher of the word revealed by God’; Dz 1793, 1798.”

b) The secondary object of infallibility consists of the truths that have not been formally revealed, but that stand in close connection with the truths formally revealed of faith and Christian morals (a certain opinion).

The proof of this thesis is furnished by the proper end of infallibility, which is ‘to guard religiously and expound faithfully the deposit of faith’ (Dz 1836). The Church could not attain this end unless it were capable of giving infallible decisions concerning truths and facts that stand in close connection with the revealed truths, whether by determining the truth in a positive way or by condemning in a negative way the opposite error.

To the secondary object of infallibility belong: a) the theological conclusions drawn from a formally revealed truth and a truth of natural reason; b) the historical facts upon whose recognition the certitude of a revealed truth depends (‘dogmatic facts’); c) the truths of natural reason that stand in intimate connection with revealed truths (see further details in the Introduction, § 6); d) the canonization of the saints, that is, the definitive judgment that a member of the Church has been received into eternal blessedness and is to be the object of public veneration.

The cult rendered to the saints, as SAINT THOMAS teaches us, is ‘a certain confession of the faith by which we believe in the glory of the saints’ (Quodl. 9, 16). If the Church could err in its judgments, then from such errors consequences would follow that are incompatible with the holiness of the Church.”

Ludwig Ott, Manual of Dogmatic Theology, Editorial Herder, Barcelona 1966, pp. 450-451

A third explanation, though a longer one, I have found translated from the Manual of Dogmatic Theology of Bernhard Bartmann

“The question of the infallibility of the canonization of the saints can be considered both historically and theologically. The first saints were, besides the Apostles and the Prophets, the Martyrs, whose names the Bishops used to write in an official register of those recognized by the Church. The entry was made after a careful judgment concerning the prior life of the martyr, and not just anyone was admitted. With respect to the first three centuries, the Protestant H. Achelis observes that the bishops exercised a strict control and rejected false martyrs (Christentum in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, II, p. 356). Later, to the holy martyrs were added the holy ‘confessors’: Anthony, Paul, Athanasius, Ephrem, Martin of Tours. It was easier to verify the reality of martyrdom than the sanctity of the confessors: for the latter, the people took part in the judgment, but it belonged to the bishop, in the last instance, to admit them into the register (Rademacher, Das Seelenleben der Heiligen, 1917, 2nd ed., pp. 32ff.).

As regards the ‘beatific vision’ of the non-martyrs, the first definitive judgment was pronounced by Benedict XII in 1336 (Dz. 530). The cult of the saints passed from one diocese to another, and thus spread throughout the whole Church. At the dawn of the year 1000, the Church endeavored, by means of fixed formulas, to regulate the cult of the saints little by little, but achieved this in a definitive way only in the year 1600. In the post-Tridentine period the theological question arose. In the days of the Council of Trent, Thomas Badia (1483-1547), Master of the Sacred Palace, maintained, against Ambrose Catharinus, that the Church, in honoring the saints, could fall into error. He asserted that one must believe in the glory of the saints in general, but not in the glory of each particular saint: he held, therefore, that it was necessary to distinguish between ‘credere ex pietate’ and ‘credere ex necessitate fidei’ (Schweitzer, Ambrosius Catharinus Politus [1484-1553], p. 73, 1910: cf. pp. 16-63, 144ff., 220-223). In canonizations, the Church cannot take Revelation as its foundation, but only human testimonies concerning the life and the miracles—testimonies always examined with great rigor (processum informativum super fama, sanctitatis, virtutum et miraculorum).

Nearly all theologians today consider that judgment of the Church to be infallible, but the thesis of the infallibility of the Church in this case is judged in various ways. Pesch says that some hold it to be a ‘pia sententia,’ while for others, such as Benedict XIV, it is ‘of faith’: ‘de fide.’ He himself qualifies it as ‘theologically certain’: it is a middle way that can be accepted. The difficulties to be resolved are the following: first of all, it is not absolutely clear whether the Church intends to define the fact that the saint has attained the vision of God. Moreover, the judgment of the Church could refer only to the small number of saints canonized by the magisterium, and not to the number of those who, before the practice of solemn canonization, were declared saints by the bishops and by the religious orders, and who, little by little, received general acceptance, without the reasons in favor of their sanctity having been rigorously examined.

Finally—the principal difficulty—it must be added that it is not possible, without a divine revelation, to arrive at a certainty of faith concerning the state of grace of a soul (Trid. S. 6, c. 12, Dz. 805). To which must be added that the Church, after the death of the last Apostle, no longer receives any public Revelation. Certainly, in the Revelation closed with the Apostles, we find the general promise of eternal life for the elect: nevertheless, it is not attributed in a definitive way to any particular person honored as holy by the Church. Predestination is an inscrutable mystery. The Church, in its investigation into the life of the saints, does not rely upon divine testimony, but only upon human information and natural elements that can always be subjective. God can bear witness in favor of the saints by means of miracles. But these too, like canonization itself, have no intimate and direct connection with the revealed truths. Add to this that these miracles can be recognized only by those who believe in them, since such faith is not obligatory. The ancient controversy over whether it is possible to prove a dogma by a notorious miracle in the Church was resolved in the negative.

It is quite difficult to refute such arguments when they are examined in earnest. When Eusebius Amort writes that ‘dubietas revelationis tollatur per indubitata miracula,’ he departs from the strict notion of Revelation. Therefore, one ought not here to speak of the highest dogmatic certainty. So thinks Scheid as well who, in treating of the infallibility of the Pope in the canonization of the saints (Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, 1890, p. 509), writes: ‘the difficulty of the problem lies in finding a truly satisfactory proof of this infallibility, whose existence is affirmed. Canonization touches the extreme limit of the field of infallible decisions. It is therefore not easy to establish, in a clear and probative manner, that it, in its whole extent, falls within the domain of the infallibility of the Church.’ Most of the time, like Melchior Cano, one flees from particular and peremptory arguments in order to rely upon a ‘bundle of arguments,’ as though number could somehow make up for the fragility of each individual argument. Scheid himself endeavored to show that the Church intends to oblige all the faithful to believe in the canonization of the saints. Certainly, it would be safer if there were a declaration of the Church affirming that such is its will.

Nevertheless, the judgment of the Church concerning the sanctity of a person deserves, without doubt, great consideration, whether by reason of its infallible authority, or by reason of the severity and rigor with which it examines the qualities required for canonization. In any case, acts of canonization can be accepted only by a general, ecclesiastical faith, and not by a divine faith. The faithful do not make a special act of faith in the canonization, but rather believe in it with a general act of faith, an act that accepts the cult of the Church as a whole. If among the number of the saints we find some ‘false’ saint, such as Barlaam and Josaphat, the relative cult that has been rendered to them is directed to God. Just as a king can be honored by means of a pseudo-ambassador, in like manner God can be honored through a pseudo-saint.”

Bernhard Bartmann, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. I. I. 2nd printing. Ediciones Paulinas. Trans. Vicente Pedroso. São Paulo: 1964, pp. 68-70.
Original German: Lehrbuch der Dogmatik, Freiburg 1911

An article by Jean-Michel Gleize entitled Beatificazione e canonizzazione dopo il Vaticano II differs from this consensus. In that article he acknowledges that the infallibility of canonization is now the common and certain doctrine of the majority of theologians. He also acknowledges that all the manuals, before and after the Vatican Council, taught it as a common thesis in theology. Nevertheless, he casts doubt on its present-day infallibility, among other reasons because, in his opinion, the reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council have brought about, as a consequence, deficiencies in the procedures of canonization. This opinion does not personally seem to me to be correct. On other blogs of a pro-Lefebvrian tendency I have seen the articles of Msgr. Brunero Gherardini and of Father Daniel Ols, O.P., cited as proponents against the infallibility of canonizations, but I did not manage to read those studies.

Conclusions

Taking into account that the Magisterium of the Church teaches that canonization is the supreme glorification by the Church of a servant of God raised to the honor of the altars by means of a decree that is definitive and binding upon the whole Church, engaging the solemn magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, and that this is confirmed by the formula of canonization, it seems to me correct to say that canonizations are infallible. The consensus of theologians, both contemporary and non-contemporary, appears to be in agreement with this.

Author: José Miguel Arráiz