The Long Road to Sainthood

These days it is still an arduous one, but less "miraculous"

In the solemn splendor of St. Peter's in Rome, 500 North American Indians last week knelt and prayed during a pontifical Mass, along with 25,000 worshipers from around the world. The men's fan-shaped, feathered headdresses and bright sashes, the women's sequined gowns and colored headbands mingled with the scarlet robes of cardinals and the purple of bishops under the dome of the basilica. The Indians, representing 35 tribes from ten states and Canada, came bearing gifts for Pope John Paul II, including a peace pipe and beaded leather moccasins. But the purpose of their visit to Rome was to celebrate the beatification of Kateri Tekakwitha, the "Lily of the Mohawks," a 17th century Indian woman who converted to Christianity and clung to her faith resolutely, despite tribal torments, until her death in 1680.

Kateri Tekakwitha was one of five candidates, two women and three men, to be beatified, or declared "blessed," during the Mass, the last step before full sainthood. Like Kateri, the other four all lived more than three centuries ago. They were missionaries who brought the Christian faith to the people of Brazil, Guatemala and Canada. Kateri is the first American Indian as well as the first American layperson to be beatified.*

At present about 1,000 men and women are being considered for eventual canonization, including nine Americans who are awaiting beatification. There are now more than 2,500 saints, venerated because it is believed that their heroic Christianity and the example of their lives and deaths are worthy of emulation, and because they are believed to be able to intercede with God to work miracles in response to prayer. Many saints were created during the centuries when Christians were persecuted by Rome, a time when all martyrs were considered saints--along with the Apostles and early church fathers like St. Augustine and St. Jerome. The often embroidered stories of their lives--and deaths--were marked by such extraordinary courage shown and cruelty suffered that books like Jacobus de Voragine's The Golden Legend became bestsellers in medieval Europe. Each saint, often according to the manner of his or her martyrdom, became a patron for a special group. The most grotesquely appropriate, perhaps, is St. Lawrence, the patron saint of cooks and restaurateurs, who, so legend says, was grilled to death over a slow fire in A.D. 258. St. Lawrence is said to have mocked his tormentors by saying, "My flesh is well cooked on one side. Turn the other and eat."

Until the 10th century, saints were created by popular acclaim or by bishops in response to local adulation. The first papal canonization was performed in A.D. 993. Even today the road to beatification and eventual sainthood is likely to have begun with some act of piety or miracle believed in by local people. Since the late 16th century, canonization has evolved into an arduous process that in some ways resembles a legal proceeding more than a spiritual exercise.

Kateri Tekakwitha is a good example. Her cult grew in upstate New York, where for 200 years after her death local Catholics prayed to her for intercession. But only in 1884 did an Albany priest propose her "cause" to the Vatican, with the hope of canonization. Decades passed in the gathering of evidence of Kateri's "fame of sanctity" and heroic virtues.

Kateri's cause was not presented to the Vatican's Congregation of Rites (now called the Congregation for the Causes of Saints) until 1932. Then it was placed in the hands of a "postulator," whose job is to review all positive evidence, and a "general promoter of the faith," informally known as the devil's advocate, who "challenges the evidence. Kateri survived this trial. In 1943 Pope Pius XII declared her "venerable."

Traditionally, for a venerable to be elevated further requires evidence of two personal miracles for beatification and two more for sainthood. "The miracle is considered a divine sign, an indication that the church is not making a mistake about this person," says a Vatican official. In Kateri's life there was much evidence of saintly living. She was stoned for becoming a Christian, and she seems to have lived out her life in total poverty and chastity. Though local tradition credits her with dozens of miracles, proof is lacking.

Most saintly miracles involve unexpected cures in cases where people have prayed for help and no purely medical relief seems possible. When diagnosis was still crude and effective medical treatment rare, it was easier to claim miraculous recoveries. But in these days of wonder drugs and chemotherapy, "miracles" are checked out in detail with teams of physicians and are harder to come by. This is one reason why Kateri's cause languished for 37 years before beatification.

In recent years, too, the Vatican has been re-examining its lists of saints, removing many names from the calendar of saints' days observed during the liturgical year. Some were dropped because of doubts that they ever existed, among them such favorites as St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, and St. Valentine. The new calendar issued a decade ago includes only 58 saints important to Catholics the world over. Others are "optional," on the basis of local loyalties. Says a Vatican official: "St. Patrick is fine in Ireland but holds little interest for the Cambodians."

But in the 20th century, any world church still needs heroic examples of saintliness and the power of prayer, especially in countries outside Europe. It also needs saints chosen from the laity, to serve as role models in a time of doubt and secularism. Typically, though his cause has not yet been introduced in Rome, beatification proceedings are under way for Dr. Tom Dooley, the physician who operated a medical mission in Laos from 1956 until his death from cancer in 1961.

The search for Third World saints has apparently led to timely canonizations: the sanctification of the 22 19th century Ugandan Martyrs was speeded up because Africa needs saints badly. One of the five beatified last week, just in time for John Paul's current visit to Brazil, was Jose de Anchieta, a 16th century Jesuit known as "the apostle of Brazil."

The church is also relaxing long standing requirements about miracles. "The conviction is growing," a Vatican official told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn, "that other, 'signs' should be accepted, such as a great number of extraordinary 'favors' or 'graces' that can be proved and attested by serious investigation." All those beatified last week, including Kateri Tekakwitha, took a giant step toward sainthood without benefit of any fully authenticated miracles.

* The U.S. now has three saints: Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, Mother Elizabeth Seton and Bishop John Neumann, who was canonized in 1977.

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