The Making of a Saint: How the Catholic Church Canonizes Saints

When Catholics speak of "the saints," they don't simply mean people who lived good lives. In the formal sense, a saint is someone the Church has declared — after painstaking investigation — to be in heaven and worthy of universal veneration. The process that leads to that declaration is called canonization, and it is one of the most deliberate and demanding procedures in all of Christendom.

So how does an ordinary person — a nun, a pope, a layperson, even a child — become recognized as a saint? The answer involves four distinct stages, a cast of investigators and advocates, and, occasionally, the direct intervention of the Pope himself.

The Four Stages of Canonization

1. Servant of God

The journey begins at the local level. After a candidate dies (the Church normally requires a waiting period of at least five years after death), the bishop of the diocese where the person died can open a formal investigation known as a cause for canonization. The candidate is then given the title Servant of God.

During this phase, the diocese collects testimony from people who knew the candidate, examines their writings for doctrinal soundness, and investigates their reputation for holiness — or, in the case of a martyr, the circumstances of their death. All of this documentation is compiled into a positio, a detailed dossier that can run thousands of pages, and sent to Rome.

2. Venerable

Once the positio reaches the Vatican, it is examined by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints (formerly the Congregation for the Causes of Saints). Theologians and cardinals review the evidence and vote on whether the candidate lived a life of heroic virtue — meaning they practiced faith, hope, charity, and the other virtues to an extraordinary degree, consistently and over time.

If the Dicastery recommends it and the Pope agrees, the candidate is declared Venerable. This is a formal recognition that the person is a model of Christian life, but it does not yet permit public veneration (such as feast days or public prayers in their name).

3. Blessed (Beatification)

Beatification is the critical step between Venerable and Saint, and it usually requires a verified miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession — that is, someone prayed to the candidate after their death, and something medically or scientifically inexplicable occurred.

The miracle must be investigated with the same rigor as the candidate's life. Medical boards examine the evidence, and theologians confirm the link between the prayer and the event. The most common miracles accepted are instantaneous, complete, and lasting healings of otherwise incurable conditions.

There is an important exception: martyrs — those who died for the faith — do not need a miracle for beatification. Their death itself is considered the ultimate witness to Christ.

Once beatified, the candidate receives the title Blessed and may be venerated publicly, but typically only in their home region, diocese, or religious order — not yet by the universal Church.

4. Saint (Canonization)

For canonization — the final and definitive step — a second verified miracle is required, one that occurred after beatification. This second miracle serves as confirmation that the Blessed is indeed in heaven and interceding for those who seek their help.

Once canonized, the person is declared a Saint, and the entire Catholic Church worldwide is authorized — indeed encouraged — to venerate them. They are assigned a feast day on the liturgical calendar, churches may be dedicated in their honor, and the faithful may publicly pray for their intercession.

Canonization is understood by Catholics as an infallible declaration: the Pope, exercising his supreme teaching authority, definitively states that this person is in heaven with God.

The Key Players

The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints

This Vatican office (reorganized and renamed from the "Congregation" by Pope Francis in 2022) is the central body responsible for overseeing every cause for canonization. It evaluates the positio, convenes panels of theologians and medical experts, and makes recommendations to the Pope. No one becomes a saint without passing through this office.

The Postulator

Every cause has a postulator — a person (often a priest or religious, sometimes a layperson) appointed to guide the cause through every stage of the process. The postulator gathers evidence, coordinates with the diocese and the Dicastery, and essentially serves as the candidate's advocate. Think of them as the case's project manager and chief champion.

The "Devil's Advocate"

One of the most famous roles in the canonization process is the Promotor Fidei — the Promoter of the Faith — popularly known as the Devil's Advocate. Established in 1587, this official's job was to argue against canonization: to raise objections, find weaknesses in the evidence, and ensure the Church wasn't making a mistake.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II dramatically reformed the process with the apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister. He effectively abolished the formal Devil's Advocate role, replacing the adversarial trial-like procedure with a more collaborative, scholarly investigation. Critics note that the number of canonizations increased sharply after this reform — John Paul II alone canonized 482 saints during his pontificate, more than his predecessors over the preceding centuries combined.

The function hasn't entirely disappeared, however. The Dicastery still appoints a Promoter of Justice who reviews the evidence and can raise objections, but the role is far less adversarial than the old Devil's Advocate.

When the Pope Steps In: Exceptions and Shortcuts

While the standard path is carefully structured, the Pope — as the supreme authority of the Catholic Church — has the power to expedite, modify, or even bypass parts of the process. This has happened more often than you might think.

Waiving the Waiting Period

The normal rule requires five years after a candidate's death before their cause can be opened. This is meant to let passions cool and allow a more objective assessment. But popes can waive this requirement.

The most famous recent example: when Pope John Paul II died in 2005, the crowds at his funeral famously chanted "Santo subito!" ("A saint immediately!"). His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, waived the five-year waiting period just weeks later, allowing John Paul II's cause to be opened in June 2005. He was beatified in 2011 and canonized in 2014.

Benedict XVI was not the first to do this — he had himself been the beneficiary of a similar waiver when, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he witnessed Pope John Paul II waive the waiting period for Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whose cause was opened in 1999, just two years after her death in 1997.

Waiving a Miracle

Popes can also dispense with the requirement for one or both miracles. The most notable recent case: when Pope Francis canonized Pope John XXIII in 2014, he waived the requirement for a second miracle after beatification. John XXIII (the pope who convened the Second Vatican Council) had only one verified miracle on record. Pope Francis declared that John XXIII's extraordinary impact on the Church was sufficient, and canonized him alongside John Paul II in a single ceremony.

Equipollent (Equivalent) Canonization

Perhaps the most interesting papal shortcut is equipollent canonization — sometimes called "equivalent canonization." In this process, the Pope extends the liturgical cult of a person who has been venerated for centuries to the universal Church, without requiring the formal investigation, positio, or verified miracles normally needed.

The logic is simple: if the faithful have continuously venerated someone for hundreds of years, and the person's orthodoxy and holiness are well-documented by history, the Pope can simply confirm what the Church has already recognized de facto.

Pope Francis has used this power several times:

St. Angela of Foligno (2013) — a 13th-century Franciscan mystic whose cult had been locally approved for over 600 years.
St. Peter Faber (2013) — one of the original companions of St. Ignatius of Loyola and co-founder of the Jesuits, who had been beatified since 1872 but never formally canonized.
St. Margaret of Costello (2021) — a 14th-century Dominican laywoman, blind and disabled from birth, who had been beatified in 1609 and venerated locally for over 700 years.

Pope Benedict XVI similarly used equipollent canonization for St. Hildegard of Bingen (2012), the 12th-century Benedictine abbess, mystic, and polymath, whom he also declared a Doctor of the Church.

How Long Does It Take?

There is no fixed timeline. Some causes move with remarkable speed: St. Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio, the 14-year-old Mexican Cristero martyr, was killed in 1928 and canonized in 2016 — 88 years. St. Therese of Lisieux died in 1897 and was canonized just 28 years later in 1925, a pace considered unusually fast for her era.

Others take centuries. St. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431 and not canonized until 1920 — nearly 500 years. Some causes have been open for decades with no resolution, and some are effectively stalled.

The process is deliberately careful. The Church's position is that it is better to wait — even for centuries — than to canonize someone in error.

Why It Matters

The canonization process is more than ecclesiastical bureaucracy. For Catholics, it is the Church's way of saying: this person's life is a trustworthy model of how to follow Christ. The saints are not worshiped — that is reserved for God alone — but they are honored as exemplars and intercessors, men and women whose lives proved that holiness is possible in every time, place, and state of life.

From the initial petition of a local bishop to the solemn declaration of the Pope in St. Peter's Square, the making of a saint is one of the most extraordinary journeys in the life of the Catholic Church.