The Infallibility of Canonizations: A Revisionist History of the Arguments

The Modern Consensus and the Prima Facie Problem

Since the publication of De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et Beatorum Canonizatione by Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini (later Pope Benedict XIV), a general consensus has emerged that formal canonizations of the saints are infallible papal acts.¹ Indeed it is so commonly held that the New Catholic Encyclopedia simply asserts, without any note of either controversy or explanation, that canonizations are infallible declarations.² More precisely, it is commonly held that, in canonizations, the pope infallibly teaches that the one canonized is now in heaven.³

Yet, this position faces a rather significant objection. As Avery Cardinal Dulles notes, "it is difficult to see how [formal canonizations and the approval of religious institutes] fit under the object of infallibility as defined in the two Vatican councils."⁴ What he means is this: the two Vatican councils connect the Church's infallibility directly to the guarding and expounding of the deposit of faith handed down from the apostles. Hence Vatican II in Lumen Gentium teaches, "this infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine of faith and morals, extends as far as the deposit of Revelation extends, which must be religiously guarded and faithfully expounded."⁵ So much is uncontroversial: the Church's infallibility is linked directly to her office as guardian and teacher of public revelation.

Now, we should note another uncontroversial point: that this infallible teaching authority extends not only to what has been directly revealed in public revelation—the primary or direct objects of infallibility—but extends also to those things that are necessarily connected with revealed truth by either a logical or a historical necessity. Defenders of the infallibility of canonizations—well aware that Christ revealed nothing about the fate of particular post-apostolic individuals—thus place canonizations among these secondary or indirect objects of infallibility. Hence, for example, Ludwig Ott writes, "to the secondary objects of infallibility belong … the canonization of saints, that is the final judgment that a member of the Church has been assumed into eternal bliss and may be the object of general veneration."⁶ But what necessary connection is there between a particular historical individual's beatitude and the faith? As Dulles notes, "it is not easy to see how the fact that this or that saint possessed heroic virtue is either a necessary condition or a necessary consequence of Christian faith."⁷

Now to complete the difficulties, we can consider the two lines of data that are examined leading up to a formal canonization and on which the determination of sainthood is ultimately made. Since the beginning of the practice of formal canonizations by the popes,⁸ two lines of investigation have been carried out to determine sanctity: The first is an examination of the person's life, and the second is an examination of miracles attributed to the person's intercession.

To the first of these, we must note that, while a thorough investigation of a person's life may give very good reason to determine that a person was holy and is now in glory, it is ultimately inconclusive insofar as we cannot read another person's soul.⁹ What's more, not even the individual can know his own state of grace with absolute certainty—the sentiment is clear in Paul: "I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Cor 4:4). Trent is explicit: "For as no pious person ought to doubt the mercy of God, the merit of Christ and the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, so each one, when he considers himself and his own weakness and indisposition, may have fear and apprehension concerning his own grace, since no one can know with the certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God."¹⁰ Note carefully the distinction, in Trent, between those things on the one hand that are matters of divine revelation—the mercy of God...