Pope Francis: ‘Saints don’t come from a parallel universe’

Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, spoke on the convention’s opening on “the celebrity of holiness within the digital age.”

The cardinal mentioned {that a} strong and widespread fame sanctitatis, or repute for holiness, has at all times been a elementary requirement for initiating a trigger for beatification and canonization, however that the problem is particularly topical as “the digital age poses new and pressing challenges.”

Pope Francis addressed a few of these challenges in his speech to the convention members. On one hand, he mentioned that media might assist extra folks to be taught in regards to the Christian lifetime of particular person candidates for beatification or canonization. 

“Nonetheless, in using digital media, and social networks, specifically, there could be a danger of exaggeration or misrepresentation dictated by lower than noble pursuits,” he added.

“Consequently, there’s a want for clever discernment on the  a part of all those that look at the contours of the repute of holiness.”

Semeraro famous that this prerequisite for opening a trigger for beatification had “taken a again seat” in latest a long time. In response, the Vatican’s saints workplace issued a letter to the entire world’s bishops final 12 months requesting that they confirm the consistency and authenticity of a sainthood candidate’s repute for holiness.

When talking in regards to the “heroic advantage” required for canonization in the present day, Semeraro quoted St. John Henry Newman: “For those who ask me what you might be to do in an effort to be excellent, I say, first—Don’t lie in mattress past the due time of rising; give your first ideas to God; make a great go to to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary properly; be recollected; hold out dangerous ideas; make your night meditation properly; look at your self every day; go to mattress in good time, and you might be already excellent.”