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It can be tempting to think that whenever the Catholic Church canonizes an individual, the Church is automatically approving everything that person said or did during their life on earth.
However, that is not the case, as a canonization does not approve everything the saint ever did. The primary qualification for a saint is whether they lived a life of virtue.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers a brief explanation behind the Church’s main criteria during the canonization process:
By canonizing some of the faithful, i.e., by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God’s grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the saints to them as models and intercessors.
In fact, saints frequently made mistakes in their lives, as St. Gregory the Great explains in one of his homilies:
I do not deny that I am guilty, for I see my torpor and my negligence. Perhaps my very recognition of failure will win me pardon from a sympathetic judge. When I lived in a monastic community I was able to keep my tongue from idle topics and to devote my mind almost continually to the discipline of prayer. Since taking on my shoulders the burden of pastoral care, I have been unable to keep steadily recollected because my mind is distracted by many responsibilities.
Private revelations
This same principal guides the Church’s view of a particular saint’s private revelations or visions.
Many saints wrote about witnessing miraculous things or having divine ecstasies that left them speechless.
When the Church canonizes such an individual, they do not automatically approve these revelations.
A recent document by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith explains this clearly:
Even when a Nihil obstat is granted for canonization processes, this does not imply a declaration of authenticity regarding any supernatural phenomena present in a person’s life. This is evident, for instance, in the decree of canonization of St. Gemma Galgani: “[Pius XI] feliciter elegit ut super heroicis virtutibus huius innocentis aeque ac poenitentis puellae suam mentem panderet, nullo tamen per praesens decretum (quod quidem numquam fieri solet) prolato iudicio de praeternaturalibus Servae Dei charismatibus.” (“[Pius XI] happily chose to dwell on the heroic virtues of this innocent as well as penitent girl, without, however, by the present decree (which, of course, is never usually done) passing judgment on the supernatural charisms of the Servant of God.”)
One of the reasons for this is that private revelations, even when they do not contradict the Catholic faith, do not hold the same weight of public revelation, such as the Bible.
We are never obliged to believe a private revelation, whether it is revealed to a large number of people, such as at Fatima, or a single person, such as the Divine Mercy devotion.
Catholics are not forbidden from believing in such revelations, but they are not bound by the Church.
The key takeaway is that we should imitate the saint’s heroic virtues, not looking solely at their miraculous visions.
