c. 2005 Religion News Service
VATICAN CITY _ Pope Benedict XVI is moving to put his own stamp on the process of making saints, designating a lower-ranking official to preside at the May 14 beatification ceremony for a nun from Syracuse, N.Y.
Mother Marianne Cope and a Spanish nun will be beatified by Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, assistant Vatican spokesman.
By designating Saraiva Martins to preside, Benedict has, in effect, downgraded the ceremony in order to underline the difference between beatification and canonization, the two-step process that leads to sainthood.
A potential saint is first beatified, or declared “blessed” and worthy of veneration, often after a miracle is credited to his or her intercession. The person then need another miracle in order to be canonized, or formally declared a saint.
Benedict’s decision marks a distinct change in style from the late John Paul II, who made the saint-making process a hallmark of his long reign. He personally presided over ceremonies creating 482 saints and 1,338 blesseds, more than all his predecessors put together over the last five centuries.
For Cope, the May 14 ceremony will be a Saturday evening Mass inside St. Peter’s Basilica, not one of the Sunday open-air Masses favored by John Paul that allowed millions of pilgrims to attend.
Saraiva Martins told Vatican Radio the idea of someone other than the pope presiding over beatifications “is not something completely new but a return to a centuries-long practice, which was in use until 1971.”
Benedict, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was among those expressing concern that having the pope preside blurred the distinction between beatification and canonization.
His change, as pope, in how beatifications are carried out is consistent with his previous job of attempting to bring clarity and precision to the practice of church doctrine.
Under church law, only the pope may create a saint, but any bishop may perform a beatification at any location related to the life of the blessed. What’s more, the ceremony does not have to be part of a Mass.
“Pope Benedict is going back to where things were before John Paul, back to the time of Pope Paul VI,” a longtime Vatican official, now retired, commented. “He wants to make clear that beatification, the solemn proclamation of heroic virtue, is not the same as canonization.”
It was Paul VI who changed practice in 1971 by personally presiding over the Mass for the beatification of Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan martyred in a World War II concentration camp. Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the future John Paul II, concelebrated.
Candidates qualify for beatification through martyrdom or by having a miracle attributed to their intercession. Sainthood requires another miracle to be performed after beatification.
Cope, who lived from 1838 to 1918, was born in Germany and was brought to America at the age of 2. She became the superior of the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis in Syracuse before moving to Hawaii in 1883 to care for victims of leprosy on the island of Molokai. She is also known as Mother Marianne of Molokai.
Also to be declared blessed is Mother Ascensione del Cuore di Gesu (1868-1940), the Spanish nun who was co-founder and first superior general of the Dominican order of the Missionary Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary.
John Paul approved both beatifications at his last meeting with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on Dec. 20. The ceremony originally was scheduled for May 15, but that conflicted with Benedict’s decision to ordain new priests for the diocese of Rome that day.
Benedict informed the congregation of his decision to delegate the proclamation of beatification to Saraiva Martins at a meeting Tuesday.
KRE/PH END POLK
