Social Importance of Canonization and Beatification

Abstract

Canonizations and beatifications are official verdicts issued by the Church. They introduce a public cult of a given saint or blessed in a given diocese, order, country or in the whole Church. The public cult in itself is a social phenomenon, for it is performed in public place, by means of public acts and by people entitled to it. Canonization or beatification entail also a specific message of the given saint or blessed. Such messages are called a charisma, and in the canon law they are called a "church value" {momentum ecclesiale). They are the reasons why we start the canonical process and bring it into effect by canonization or beatification. The messages may be different, but of their nature they are directed toward God and the other man, thus they penetrate deeply the social life. Some concrete canonizations or beatifications, for instance, general messages (the protection of life and human dignity, principles of ethics, the ways to reach God); messages concerning the Church in general (family, human poverty, mercy, education and ecumenia); messages regarding Europe in general (respect for the Christian roots, unity, consent, cooperation for the good of the nations); messages for the nations (problems concerning a particular nation) and particular messages (how to cope with the needs of a diocese, order or associations). The research on the social effects of canonization and beatification in Polish sociology, theology and canon theology is still a branch almost untouched. The Holy Father John Paul II gave an impulse to those researches, giving his messages on the occasion of the beatification or canonization of Polish men and women.