Hello Everyone,
Does the church still bestow Sainthood on people? If so, how is it done?
They sure can. here is a list of recent canonisations; the last being in January 2015. The current pope has created no less than seventeen.
The process is long and complicated.
Popes John XXIII and John Paul II were canonized just last year.
Normally it requires two miracles to be attributed to a person after their death for canonization to take place.
The process of canonization is detailed here.
Theologically speaking, the Church has never “bestowed” sainthood on anyone.
Only God can make someone a saint. The Church is merely acknowledging what they have determined to be true.
the church also can demote them.
John Paul II created more saints than all the previous popes combined. So it’s still a very popular thing now.
Well, Mark Ingram was just signed to a four-year extension on his contract.
Interesting.
Jews don’t have Saints per se, of course, but have Super-Duper Rabbis over the last two millennia, and the recording of or nature of the miracles they perform isn’t a sine qua non (but it helps); there being no Catholic Church equivalent, the qualifications for Super-Duperness often vary with the tradition, denomination, or cult (depending on your definition).
However, in normative Talmudic Judaism, and developed significantly by the 18th-century “founder” of Chassidism the Baal Shem Tov and his followers to this day, the idea of “The Lamed-Vavniks” -----literally, “The 36” in Hebrew, with a Yiddish/Slavic plural “nik” more formally, “The Hidden Righteous” (Tzadikim Nistarim)–are 36 people of every generation because of whose merit God does not simply wash his hands and extinguish this sinful Earth.
The Christ Salvation is strongly suggested here–and the everpresent necessity for it in Judaic epistemology (someone somewhere besides me must have noticed this). Now, unlike for The Savior, no-one knows who these 36 are. Including the 36 themselves.
So it could be me or you. (Just a slob like one of us, as the execrable hit song puts it.)
The Wik gives a short definition, with reference to the Talmudic source text (I have done no studying of this topic), which of course deals with the Biblical sources. The discussion in this blog, chosen almost at random, has a fuller recap of the text in the Talmud and subsequent ideas.
I have only heard of "The 36,” as I suspect have most people who hear about them only in sermons and homilies. The cited blog, however, gives support to the idea of 10,000 hidden righteous ones among all–men, women, and Gentiles.
And the related question - how often has proof of marching ability been required?
Only God can make someone a saint, but the Pope can create saints? That (usage of the word “create”) sounds weird to me (but IANAC).
The Pope doesn’t make people saints, or create saints. What he does is canonize them-- Literally, putting them on a list. In Catholic theology, a saint is any person who is in Heaven. This includes the humans traditionally called “saint”, all non-fallen angels (who were never humans), all of the dead who have reached Heaven whether recognized by the Church or not, and those handful of people throughout history who have reached Heaven without dying (like Elijah who was taken up in a chariot of fire). You’re a saint as soon as you reach Heaven, but it might take some time for news of that blessed fact to reach Earth.
italics added.
I never knew this. Thanks.
“Not Recognized” means…heathens, Jews? All the pre-Salvation people and (until recently, almost) unbaptized in Limbo?
For “epistemology” substitute “soteriology.”
There is the descriptor, “my sainted mother,” which is the speaker saying that his mother is in heaven.
The church’s list of saints are people the church has determined to be in heaven, but the belief is that there are many more in heaven that the church doesn’t know about.
You weren’t asking me, but here goes anyway.
“Not recognized” means everyone in Heaven who hasn’t been officially recognized by the Church (in this case, the Catholic Church) as being in Heaven. That could be everyone from your next-door neighbor who was basically a good guy, in fact, a really good guy, but who nobody ever heard of because he was just some guy, to, well, everyone (the Catholic Church does not rule out the possibility of universal salvation).
Putting aside the question of universal salvation, the Catholic Church does not say that only Catholics, or only Christians, are saved. There are some nut-case (and probably schismatic) sects within Catholicism that do say this (I’m thinking of the Society of St. Pius X), but it is not, and has never been, the teaching of the Church.
So “not recognized” means just that. Not officially recognized in the sense that the Church hasn’t put them on the sainthood rolls and started naming churches after them. All the anonymous people since the dawn of humanity who went to Heaven are just as much saints as Peter or Paul or John XXIII or St. Joan of Arc or anyone else you can think of.
I think so. There seems to be wide consensus that becoming romantically involved with a person who uses a wheelchair is a fast-track to sainthood. 
(sorry, I couldn’t resist)
How many miracles?
[Quote=Father Guido Sarducci]
Father Guido Sarducci: [ smoking cigarette ] You know, you don’t have-a a patron saint for the United States, but there are some American saints. Just the last couple of years they made-a some. The first was-a about-a two years ago. Her name was-a Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. Mother Seton-is-a what they call her. And she’s got-a these nuns of her own order who lobby-they’re real heavy-they came to Rome and everything. And it’s amazing, you see. To be made a saint in-a the catholic church, you have to have-a four miracles. That’s-a the rules, you know. It’s-a always been that-a. Four miracles, and-a to prove it. Well, this-a Mother Seton-now they could only prove-a three miracles. But the Pope-he just waved the fourth one. He just waved it! And do you know why? It’s-a because she was American. It’s all-a politics. We got-a some Italian-a people, they got-a forty, fifty, sixty miracles to their name. They can’t-a get in just cause they say there’s already too many Italian saints, and this woman comes along with-a three lousy miracles. I understand that-a two of them was-a card tricks. Next thing you know, they’re gonna be making Kreskin a saint. Saint Kreskin-they’ll probably call him. It’s a good one.
[/Quote]
What seems to be a modern “innovation” is the idea of fast-tracking a declaration of sainthood due to popular demand. The sainting of Mother Teresa and John Paul II seemed to happen unusually quickly, possibly short-circuiting some of the usual steps, under immense popular pressure.
There was also, believe it or not, intense popular pressure from one particular country to canonize Eva Peron (and I wonder if the presence of an Argentine Pope might get that movement going again?). There is a process, it is definitely political in nature, and they try very hard to screen out candidates whose untidy personal lives could heap embarrassment on the Church, like a St. Michael of Corleone. I believe it was Uncle Cecil who described the term “saint” as “Christian with a capital C.” The Church recognizes someone with exemplary qualities the rest of us should emulate.
Other religions have saints, or something that roughly translates to “saint.” I visited a shrine in Weihai, China celebrating the “Three-in-One Water Saint” which looked a lot like Marvel Comics’ Living Tribunal. I assume she was Buddhist, but can’t swear to it.
The theory behind requiring miracles to be demonstrated is that this provides proof that the person is indeed in heaven. They wouldn’t be able to invoke divine assistance for people who request it of them if they weren’t with God.
It’s the same notion as behind the Feast of All Saints. The Canon of Saints is sort of the RCC’s Hall of Fame: it’s a list of “people who we reckon were good at this thing we do”, but it doesn’t try to be fully comprehensive and one of the things that’s needed to be put in it is a large-enough fanbase. The immense majority of saints never had such a fanbase, being people next door.