Friday, March 20, 2020

Robert Bellarmine on the Infallibility of Canonization of Saints


In many Roman Catholic circles, there is a debate as to whether canonizations are infallible. While some (e.g., the SSPX, especially in light of "villains" of the Traditionalist movement, Paul VI and John Paul II, who have recently being canonized) cast doubt on this, most hold to the view that canonizations are exercises of at least secondary objects of infallibility, therefore, when the Church proclaims ‘x’ a canonized saint, that is a declaration protected from error. This was the view of Robert Bellarmine, who wrote thusly:

CHAPTER IX
It must be Believed that the Pope Cannot Err in the
Canonization of Saints

Now we move to the third point, and there are two opinions of it. The first is of heretics, who hold that the Pope can err in canonization of the saints. So John Wycliffe, as Thomas Waldens relates (de Sacramentalibus, tom. 3, cap. 122) where he says the Pope can err no less in this matter than Prester John, the King of Ethiopia, or a Turk, or a Sultan. The Lutherans and Calvinists argue the same thing, seeing that in other similar matters they attribute no authority to the Pope.

The other is of Catholics, asserting that it is certain the Church does not err in the canonization of the saints, so much so that without any doubt, the saints canonized by the Church must be venerated. This is proven:

1) Because if it were lawful to doubt whether a canonized saint is really a saint, it would also be lawful to doubt whether he must be venerated; but this is false. In fact, St. Augustine (epist. 118) says that it is a most insolent insanity to dispute whether one may do what the whole Church does. We gather the same thing from St. Bernard, who in a letter to the canons of Lyons (Epist. 174), speaking about celebrating feasts in honor of the saints, says: “I securely hold and hand down what I have received from the Church.” Besides, all the fathers venerated saints without any hesitation, and assert that they must be venerated. Lastly, we are held to obey the Pope when he appoints the feast days of some saint, just the same, we cannot do something against conscience, therefore, we cannot doubt whether a man who has been canonized by the Church may and must be venerated.

2) We prove it from two unsuitable consequents: in the first place, the saints are not deprived of the suffrage of the living since we are not allowed to pray for those who have been canonized, just as St. Augustine says (Sermon 17), while commenting on the words of the Apostle: “he that prays for a martyr does him an injury.” And the same must be understood on all canonized saints, as Innocent teaches (c. Cum Marthae, de celebrat. Missarum). But if the Church could err in this it would defraud the man that is held as a saint and is not in fact, when no one prays for him. Next, the living would be defrauded of the intercessions of the Saints; for if the Church could err in this they would often call upon the damned in place of the blessed. Besides, when the Church asks in the prayers for the feasts of the saints that just as God glorified them in heaven, he would likewise bestow grace upon us here on earth, it would pray for a curse in place of a blessing. And although it would not seek that curse, except materially, nevertheless, this whole thing looks absurd.

3) Great miracles that have been diligently examined make the matter evidently believable, as we have shown elsewhere. But saints are not ordinarily canonized by the Pope unless they are illuminated with great and certain miracles. And it is confirmed, for if we believe without any hesitation that Caesar and Pompey existed because we have it from the common consensus of historians, who themselves were men and could lie, why do we not believe without any hesitation that God himself witnesses the fact through miracles when there is no reason to suspect the contrary?

4) It proves from the preparation. Before the saints are canonized, fasts and public prayers are appointed and the whole matter is very diligently examined for a long time, but it is not credible that God does not come to his Church, which is so disposed and begs for him to do so.

Lastly, it is proven a posteriori: because in other matters, in which the Popes can err, at some time errors got detected in that business; but in this no error has ever been detected.

But some object with a passage of St. Augustine: “Many bodies are honored on earth, whose souls are tortured in hell.” I respond: This passage may not be a quote from Augustine, for I have never found it in his works. But whether it is nor not, it can be understood to be about the impious, who are honored in very proud tombs, when still their souls are tortured in hell; or in the bodies or uncanonised saints; or on bodies that have been substituted for the bodies of saints; or at length, on the martyrs of the Donatists, who were honored by heretics as martrys when really their souls were tortured in hell. See more on the argument of this point in St. Thomas (Quodlibet, 9, q. ult., art. ult.), St. Augustine of Ancona (Suma de potestate Ecclesiae, q. 14 art 4), John Driedo, de Ecclesiastic. Dogmatibus 4, 1), St. Antoninus (Summae Theologiae 3. par. tit. 12 c. 8), Cajetan (tractat de. ingulgentibus, ad Julium, c. 8), Sylvester (Canonizatio), and Melchior Cano (de Locis, lib. 5, final chapter). (Robert Bellarmine, On the Canonization and Veneration of the Saints [trans. Ryan Grant; Port Falls, Idaho: Mediatrix Press, 2019], 97-99)

Early in his treatise, in chapter VII (“The Church Rightly  Canonizes Saints”), Bellarmine draws a parallel between the Church’s canonization of saints with God, in holy scripture, canonizing saints in Acts 7:


God himself willed sacred writers to record, in every detail, the glorious life and death of those who lived in their times, as is clear from Ecclesiasticus, who in chapter 44 canonized a great many saints, such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Phineas, Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, David, Elijah, Elisha, etc. Likewise, in the New Testament, St. Luke canonized St. Stephen in the book of Acts, as well as James the Greater, and also Peter, Paul, Barnabas, Silas and others; therefore, it is trustworthy that God willed it to be done afterwards in the same mode. (Ibid., 90, emphasis added)


On the topic of the canonization of the saints and how it resulted in the development of papal infallibility, see: