Visions can’t make or break a sainthood cause, says Pope

After three days of conferences, Pope Leo XIV received students, researchers, and postulators (people who promote the cause of a future saint in a process of canonization or beatification) in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican.

Taking up the theme of the seminar, the Pope emphasized the importance that the Catholic Church attaches to mysticism. At the same time, he recalled that the exceptional events through which it manifests itself — ecstasy, afflictions, or visions, for example — remain “secondary and non-essential.”

That’s why, he explained, these extraordinary phenomena are not “indispensable conditions for recognizing the holiness” of a person.

They can only be recognized as authentically virtuous if they are “ordered to the edification of the whole Church” and therefore do not contradict what is transmitted in the Bible and the tradition of the Church.

The Pope quoted St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), known for her ecstasies, who affirmed that perfection does not lie “in inner sweetness, in great ecstasies, in visions or in the spirit of prophecy, but in the perfect conformity of our will with that of God.”

Leo XIV therefore called for a balanced approach to mystical phenomena.

Recognizing that certain mystical manifestations “can be misleading,” the Pope invited his listeners to rely on the magisterium, theology, and spirituality to discern their authenticity. Finally, he encouraged all those working on causes for beatification and canonization to “imitate the saints."

In the book Leo XIV, portrait d'un pape péruvien (Leo XIV, Portrait of a Peruvian Pope, 2025, Fayard), theologian Véronique Lecaros testifies to the “very pragmatic attitude” adopted by then-Father Robert Francis Prevost towards alleged visions and messages from the afterlife during his time as a missionary in Peru.

One of his friends, César Piscoya, recalls hearing him say: “Think that 103 times these visions come from the imagination. It’s possible that on the 104th time, it’s an inspired message ...”