Terminology.
*Antipope [https://en.wikipedia.], is a person who, in opposition to the one who is generally seen as the legitimately elected Pope, make a significantly accepted competing claim to be the Pope, the Bishop of Rome and leader of the Catholic Church. At times between the 3rd and mid-15th century, antipopes were supported by a fairly significant faction of religious cardinals and secular monarchs and kingdoms. Persons who claim to be pope, but have few followers, such as the modern sedevacantist antipopes, are not classified with the historical antipopes.
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*Saint [https://en.wikipedia.], is a term used for a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness to God. Depending on the context and denomination… all of their faithful deceased in Heaven are considered to be saints, but some are considered worthy of greater honor or emulation; official ecclesiastical recognition, and consequently veneration, is given to some saints through the process of canonization in the Catholic Church or glorification in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Depending on the religion, saints are recognized either by official ecclesiastical declaration, as in the Catholic faith…
*Roman Martyrology [https://en.wikipedia.], is the official martyrology of the Catholic Church. Its use is obligatory in matters regarding the Roman Rite liturgy… It provides an extensive but not exhaustive list of the saints recognized by the Church.
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*Canonization [https://en.wikipedia.], is the act by which the Catholic Church or the Anglican Communion declare that a person who has died was a saint, upon which the person is included in the “canon”, or list, of recognized saints. Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church, the act of canonization is reserved to the Apostolic See and occurs at the conclusion of a long process requiring extensive proof that the candidate for canonization lived and died in such an exemplary and holy way that his is worthy to be recognized as a saint. The Church’s official recognition of sanctity implies that the person is now in Heaven and that he may be publicly invoked and mentioned officially in the liturgy of the Church, including in the Litany of the Saints.
(Process) an exhaustive search of the candidate’s writings, speeches and sermons is undertaken, a detailed biography is written, and eyewitness accounts are collected… At some time, permission is then granted for the body of the Servant of God to be exhumed and examined. A certification “non cultus” is made that no superstitious or heretical worship, or improper cult of the Servant of God or his tomb has emerged, and relics are taken and preserved.
Venerable. When sufficient evidence has been collected, the Congregation recommends to the Pope that he proclaim the heroic virtue of the Servant of God… A Venerable does not yet have a feast day, permission to erect churches in his honor has not yet been granted… but prayer cards and other materials may be printed to encourage the faithful to pray for a miracle wrought by his intercession as a sign of God’s will that the person be canonized.
Blessed. Beatification is a statement of the Church that it is “worthy of belief” that the Venerable is in Heaven and saved. Attaining this grade depends on whether the Venerable is a martyr: the Pope has only to make a declaration of martyrdom, which is a certification that the Venerable gave his life voluntarily as a witness of the Faith and/or in an act of heroic charity for others. For a non-martyr, all of them being denominated “confessors” because they “confessed”, i.e., bore witness to the Faith by how they lived, proof is required of the occurrence of a miracle through the intercession of the Venerable; that is, that God granted a sign that the person is enjoying the Beatific Vision by performing a miracle for which the Venerable interceded. Presently, these miracles are almost always miraculous cures of infirmity, because these are the easiest to judge given the Church’s evidentiary requirements for miracles; e.g., a patient was sick with an illness for which no cure was known; prayers were directed to the Venerable; the patient was cured; the cure was spontaneous, instantaneous, complete, and enduring; and physicians cannot discover any natural explanation.
The satisfaction of the applicable conditions permits beatification, which then bestows on the Venerable the title of “Blessed”. A feast day will be designated, but its observance is ordinarily only permitted for the Blessed’s home diocese, to specific locations associated with him, and/or to the churches or houses of the Blessed’s religious order if he belonged to one.
Saint. To be canonized as a saint, ordinarily at least two miracles must have been performed through the intercession of the Blessed after his death, but for beati confessors, i.e., beati who were not declared martyrs, only one miracle is required, ordinarily being additional to that upon which beatification was premised. Very rarely, a pope may waive the requirement for a second miracle after beatification if he, the Sacred College of Cardinals, and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints all agree that the Blessed lived a life of great merit proven by certain actions… The Saint is assigned a feast day which may be celebrated anywhere in the universal Church, although it is not necessarily added to the General Roman Calendar or local calendars as an “obligatory” feast; parish churches may be erected in his honor; and the faithful may freely celebrate and honor the Saint.
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*Beatification [https://en.wikipedia.], is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person’s entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on the behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name.
History. 1634, Pope Urban VIII, reserved the power of beautifying to the Apostolic See. 1983 reforms, one miracle must be believed to have taken place through the intercession of the person to be beatified, though the medical investigations of the Church are conducted privately and are therefore subject to speculation about their methods.
The requirement of a miracle is not relevant to the canonization of those who died in martyrdom, as their sanctity is evidenced by being killed in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith).
Cultus confirmation is a somewhat different procedure, wherein the church recognizes a local cult of a person, asserting that veneration of that person is acceptable. Such a confirmation is more an official sanctioning of folk Catholicism than an active step in a canonization procedure, but the object of the cult may equally be addressed as “Blessed.”
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*Folk Catholicism [https://en.wikipedia.], is any of various ethnic expressions of Catholicism as practiced in Catholic communities, typically in developing nations. Practices identified by outside observers as “folk Catholicism” vary from place to place and sometimes contradict the official teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church… (some forms) are based on syncretism with non-Catholic beliefs and may involve the syncretism of Catholic saints and non-Christian deities. (some) have come to be identified as separate religions: Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santeria; Brazilian Candomble. Similarly complex syncretisms between Catholic practice and indigenous or Native American belief systems… are typically not named as separate religions; their practitioners generally regard themselves as good Catholics even while worshipping non-Christian gods… Modern fold Catholic beliefs and practices include miracle stories about priests in Ireland, stories about apparitions of the Virgin Mary and other saints in Spain, and folk practices surrounding vows to saints in Latin America and Europe… Folk accommodations between Catholicism and local beliefs can be found in Gaelic Scotland, the Philippines, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Poland, and southern India.
The Roman Catholic Church takes a pragmatic and patient stance towards folk Catholicism. For example, it may permit pilgrimages to the site of reported apparitions (e.g. Our Lady of Medjugorje [https://en.wikipedia.], 1981, Bosnia and Herzegovina) without endorsing or condemning belief in the reported apparitions, and will often declare Marian apparitions and similar miracles “worthy of belief” (e.g. Our Lady of Fatima [https://en.wikipedia.], 1917, Portugal), or will confirm the cult of local saints without actually endorsing or recommending the belief. When the Roman Catholic church considers that there is a blatant heresy occurring, it actively rejects it and tell Catholics to stay away from such practices. This is the case of the Cult of Santa Muerte (Saint Death, a personification and worshiping of death [https://en.wikipedia.], Our Lady of the Holy Death, 2000s-2010s, Mexico). The Church has condemned the cult as blasphemous, calling it a “degeneration of religion”.
List of Canonizations [https://en.wikipedia.]. Adelaide of Italy (931-999) Canute IV of Denmark (c. 1042-1086) Henry I aka Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor (973-1024) Henry of Uppsala (?-c. 1156) Sigfrid of Sweden (?-1045) Edward the Confessor (1003-1066) Thomas of Becket (c. 119-1170) Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045-1093) Stanislaus of Szczepanow (1030-1079) Louis IX (1214-1270) Joan of Arc (1412-1431) Thomas More (date, 1935)
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*Canonization and Beatification:
Charlemagne’s Beatification is celebrated on Jan. 28.
Antipope Paschal canonized Charlemagne in a magnificent celebration at Aachen in 1165. In 1179, the Third Council of the Lateran annulled all of his ordinances, including the canonisation. (refer to Blog Post: Carolingian Dynasty, National Heroes. http://historicalandmisc.)
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*Penitential: relating to or expressing penitence or penance.
*Penitential, [https://en.wikipedia.], a book of church rules concerning the Christian sacrament of penance, a “new manner of reconciliation with God” that was first developed by Celtic monks in Ireland in the 6th century AD. It consisted of a list of sins and the appropriate penances prescribed for them, and served as a type of manual for confessors.
Origin. In the Early Christian Church absolution for sin was granted after confession and absolution; reconciliation was followed by readmission to the Eucharist. Absolution was granted once in a lifetime, and at set seasons of the year. Public penance did not necessarily include a public avowal of sin, but was decided by the confessor, and was to some extent determined by whether or not the offense was sufficiently open or notorious to cause scandal to others. Oakley points out that recourse to public penance varied both in time and place, and was affected by the weakness of the secular law. The ancient praxis of penance relied on papal decrees and synods, which were translated and collected in early medieval collection. Little of those written rules, however, was retained in the later penitentials.
The earliest important penitentials were those by the Irish abbots Cummean (6th-century, Paenitentiale Ambrosianum), Columbanus and Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus. Most later penitentials were based on theirs, rather than on earlier Roman texts. [Walter J. Woods] “over time the penitential books helped suppress homicide, personal violence, theft, and other offenses that damaged the community and made the offender a target for revenge.”
[Thomas Pollock Oakley] the penitential guides first developed in Wales, probably at St. David’s, and spread by missions to Ireland. They were brought to Britain with the Hiberno-Scottish mission (see) and were introduced to the Continent by Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries.
Praxis.
As priests heard confessions, they began to compile unofficial handbooks that dealt with the most confessed sins and wrote down set penances for those sins. Penances would vary given both the severity of the offenses and the status of the sinner; such that the penance imposed on a bishop would generally be more severe than that imposed on a deacon for the same offense. For stealing, Cummean prescribed that a layman shall do one year of penance; a cleric, two; a subdeacon three; a deacon, four; a priest, five; a bishop, six.
The list of various penitential acts imposed on the sinner to ensure reparation included more or less rigorous fasts, prostrations, deprivation of things otherwise allowable; also alms, prayers, and pilgrimages. The duration was specified in days, quaranties, or years. Gilda lists the penance for an inebriated monk, “If any one because of drunkenness is unable to sing the Psalms, being stupefied and without speech, he is deprived of dinner.”
The penitentials advised the confessor to inquire into the sinner’s state of mind and social condition. The priest was told to ask if the sinner before him was rich or poor; educated; ill; young or old; to ask if he or she had sinned voluntarily or involuntarily, and so forth. The spiritual and mental state of the sinner -as well as his or her social status was fundamental to the process. Moreover, some penitentials instructed the priest to ascertain the sinner’s sincerity by observing posture and tone of voice.
Penitentials were soon compiled with the authorization of bishops concerned with enforcing uniform disciplinary standards within a given district.
Commutation.
The Penitential of Cummean counseled a priest to take into consideration in imposing a penance, the penitent’s strengths and weaknesses. Those who could not fast were obliged instead to recite daily a certain number of psalms, to give alms, or perform some other penitential exercise as determined by the confessor.
Some penances could be commuted through payments or substitutions. While the sanctions in early penitentials, such as that of Gildas, were primarily act of mortification or in some cases excommunication, the inclusion of fines in later compilations derive from secular law, and indicate a church becoming assimilated into the larger society. The connection with the principles embodied in law codes, which were largely composed of schedules of wergeld or compensation, are evident. “Recidivism was always possible, and the commutation of sentence by payment of cash perpetuated the notion that salvation could be bought.”
Commutations and the intersection of ecclesiastical penance with secular law both differed from locality to locality. Nor were commutations restricted to financial payments: extreme fasts and recitation of large numbers of psalms could also commute penances; the system of commutation did not reinforce commonplace connections between poverty and sinfulness, even though it favored people of means and education over those without such advantages. But the idea that whole communities, from top to bottom, richest to poorest, submitted to the same form of ecclesiastical discipline was misleading. For example, meat was a rarity in the diet of the poor, with or without the imposition of ecclesiastical fasts. In addition, the system of public penance was not replaced by private penance; the penitentials themselves refer to public penitential ceremonies.
Opposition.
The Council of Paris of 829 condemned the penitentials and ordered all of them to be burnt. In practice, a penitential remained one of the few books that a country priest might have possessed. Some argue that the last penitential was composed by Alain de Lille, in 1180. The objections of the Council of Paris concerned penitentials of uncertain authorship or origin. Penitentials continued to be written, edited, adapted, and, in England, translated into the vernacular. They served an important role in the education of priests as well as in the disciplinary and devotional practices of the laity. Penitentials did not go out of existence in the late 12th century. Robert of Flamborough wrote his Liber Poenitentialis in 1208.
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*use of Relics (remains of Saints)
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The Second Council of Nicaea in 787 -The Council decreed that every altar should contain a relic -as it remains to the present day in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The veneration of the relics of saints reflects a belief that the saints in heaven intercede for those on earth. A number of cures and miracles have been attributed to relics, not because of their own power, but because of the holiness of the saint they represent.
The Council of Trent of 1563 enjoined bishops to instruct their flocks that “the holy bodies of holy martyrs… are to be venerated by the faithful, for through these [bodies] many benefits are bestowed by God on men”... There are also many relics attributed to Jesus, (Shroud of Turin, Sandals of Jesus Christ, Seamless robe of Jesus, True Cross)
*Relics of Saints. Saint Sebastian, His cranium was brought to the town of Ebersberg (Germany) in 934. -It is said the silver-encased cranium was used as a cup in which to present wine to the faithful during the feast of Saint Sebastian. -
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