02Knights Templar - Julian Emperor

SAINTS IN THE MODERN ERA
Congregation for the Causes of Saints
As we have seen, in the early Christian Church the process
whereby individuals were accorded the status of sainthood
was largely one of popular and local acclaim. This informal
system became increasingly centralised by the Catholic
Church over time until the granting of sainthood came under
the power of the papacy itself. It is now thought that this papal
prerogative to canonise certain individuals was formalised by
Pope Innocent III (1199–1216), building on the groundwork
already carried out by previous popes.Today, the body within
the Roman Catholic Church that oversees the canonisation of
saints is known as Congregatio de Causis Sanctorum or the Sacred
Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Previously, Pope Sixtus V had formed the Sacred
Congregation for Rites in 1588, a body that both dealt with
the canonisation of saints and acted as a regulator for practises
of worship within the Church. Pope Benedict XIV wrote an
important work on the subject of canonisation called De servorum
Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione between 1734
and 1738 which set the generally accepted precedent for the
process. It came to be accepted that there were three main
stages or grades in the process of canonisation. In the first, the
individual was termed the ‘Venerable servant of God’, in the
second ‘blessed’ and finally he or she was designated a ‘saint’.
Local churches are expected to call for the recognition of important
individuals in this way and in order for someone to be
beatified and declared ‘blessed’ they must demonstrate evidence
of what is termed ‘heroic virtue’.When the candidate
has been beatified they can then be venerated at a local level.
In some cases, achieving sainthood may take centuries and
has, at times, required evidence of miracles performed by the
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