The Administration of a Beatification Process of a Group of Martyrs

Abstract

The course of a beatification process of a group of martyrs is no different to a cause concerning a single candidate to the glory of the altars. The most evident differences, potentially having far-reaching consequences in the future, are noticeable at the preliminary stage of such a process. The five sections of the article address the following issues: past canonisation processes of groups of martyrs, reasons and various preferences for the creation of such groups including the present-day consolidation of several causes, the question of a competent bishop, the composition of the group and relevance of collected evidence, and finally the issue of restricting the number of witnesses in this kind of process.

In beatification processes that are intended to apply jointly to several persons it is vital at the preliminary stage to pay particular attention to the criterion of selection and joining candidates together: whether death was inflicted in the same place and whether it occurred under the same persecution. During the process itself, evidence concerning individual persons has to be accumulated and processed since the Canon Law elements are verified with respect to each of them.

When a resolution is made that the process will follow the path of martyrdom and that a group of candidates will be established, one has to exclude such possibilities as “taking the easier way” or “omitting a cause for a miracle by the intercession of a particular servant of God”, the latter necessary in the case of confessors.