Has the Catholic Church become too quick to declare people saints? I didn't have Pope Leo addressing this issue on my bingo card! At a conference organised by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints on 21 October, the Pope has just raised the question of historical truth, the integrity of the canonisation process & the danger of allowing convenient narratives to obscure the evidence. Pope Leo emphasised the importance of rigorous historical investigation in establishing the authenticity of a candidate's holiness. His insistence upon credible testimony, serious scholarship & fidelity to historical truth is particularly interesting given the considerable changes to the Church's canonisation process over recent decades. The most significant reform came under St John Paul II in 1983, when Divinus Perfectionis Magister substantially streamlined the procedures for investigating causes of beatification and canonisation. The reforms were intended to make the process more effective without sacrificing the necessary scrutiny, but they also helped make it possible for causes to proceed considerably more quickly than had previously been customary. Subsequently Pope Francis made further changes, controversially exercising his papal authority to dispense with the usual requirement for a second recognised miracle when canonising John XXIII in 2014. When we consider the remarkable number of recent popes who have been canonised: John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II have all been raised to the altars within a relatively short period, three of them during Francis's pontificate, there is surely a legitimate question about whether the relatively rapid canonisation of successive modern pontiffs risks creating the impression that the Church is endorsing particular ecclesiastical eras, programmes or legacies, rather than simply recognising the heroic virtue of individual men? It is a certainly a question that has been asked! Canonisation is a judgement concerning sanctity, not a retrospective endorsement of every decision made during a pontificate. The temptation is to treat the canonisation of a pope as proof that his theological judgements, pastoral policies or approach to Church governance must necessarily have been correct. The Church has never taught that canonisation confers retrospective infallibility upon a saint's every action or opinion. Saints can make mistakes, exercise poor judgement and leave behind complicated historical legacies, as Oscar Wilde famously said, "every Saint has a past, every sinner has a future". Individual holiness does not depend upon pretending otherwise. This is precisely why historical scholarship is so important. Our faith is an intrinsically historical religion, we believe that God entered human history, that Christ lived, died and rose again, and that His grace continues to transform real human beings living in particular times and circumstances. Historical investigation should therefore never be regarded as a threat to Catholic faith, accuracy serves the truth upon which that faith depends. I think this is what makes Leo's intervention so interesting because there's no doubt that confidence in ecclesiastical institutions has been badly damaged, so his emphasis upon historical truth and credible evidence is particularly welcome. Is he criticising his predecessors or signalling an intention to reverse their reforms? He has said nothing to establish either conclusion, nevertheless, his remarks invite us to reflect upon whether the Church's procedures always provide sufficient historical perspective and whether the desire to recognise holiness quickly can sometimes sit uneasily alongside the need for thorough investigation. Another point here is that the holiness of a pope is not the same thing as the success of his pontificate. A man may possess heroic virtue while making decisions whose prudence historians and theologians will continue to debate for generations. If we genuinely believe that truth and sanctity are inseparable, then rigorous historical scrutiny should be the norm, even when it challenges cherished assumptions or convenient narratives. The saints belong to the whole Church, not to competing ecclesiastical factions and their witness is far too important to be reduced to an argument about which side of today's ecclesiastical controversies has been vindicated.

JUST IN: Vatican Bars Annual TLM Pilgrimage from Entering St. Peter’s Basilica — dianemontagna.substack.com/p… According to organizers of the annual ‘Summorum Pontificum’ pilgrimage , the decision was communicated in a recent letter from the Vatican Secretariat of State More here: dianemontagna.substack.com/p…

Integrity’s Mog-Off was thrilling! 🤩

Looking forward to hearing Alexander Petersen’s take (@AmericanReform_) on @BigModernism’s endorsement of Kenneth Copeland’s warning that we’re all going to hell unless we vote Republican in November. Tonight @ 7pm ET on @AvoidBabylon: youtube.com/watch?v=uaF45AIG…