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The Case of the “Offering of Life” in the Causes for Canonization of Catholic Saints: The Threshold of Self-Sacrifice

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Abstract

Catholic legal and doctrinal tradition defined two main cases for the canonization of saints: until very recently, sainthood was related either to martyrdom or to the heroic practice of virtues, ascertained through a well-defined judicial procedure. In 2017, Pope Francis renewed this ancient tradition by introducing a third case, consisting in the “offering of life”, namely the sacrifice of one’s life in the name of charity, intended as Christian love for the others. The “offering of life” is placed at the center of an ongoing process of mediation between papal authority, the judicial praxis of the causes for canonization, and ecclesiastic law. The introduction of this new type of sainthood can be explained in light of the growing difficulty to apply the two traditional grids of behavior established by the Church in the evaluation of the life of new kinds of persons who enjoy a widespread fame of sanctity, but are not conform to the strict jurisprudential criteria of martrydrom and heroicity. Therefore, the debate surrounding the “offering of life” entails a dialectics between the necessity of a rationalized set of models, providing precise—and thus evaluable—“narrative programs” (Greimas) and defining a circumscribed number of canonizable human types, and the unprecedented multiplication of instances of sanctity in the contemporary world.

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Notes

  1. Massimo Leone, for example, states: “saints are among the most formidable communication media of Catholicism.” [25: 1]. Through saints, the Church proposes “models of spiritual perfection. By embracing such models, believers are able to conform to certain religious values.” Tilliette [41: 10] observes, moreover, that models of sanctity are the best embodiment of the “spiritual aspirations” of a religious group in a certain time and place and the clearest response to “its eschatological and moral preoccupations.” For a discussion of the valorization of saints as models after the Council of Trent, see [26: 13–20].

  2. Although the procedure for ascertaining sanctity evolved to include the historical–critical method as well, the cause for canonization remains intrinsically judicial in nature. See [35].

  3. In this paper, I use the word “sanctity” to indicate a saintly behavior and “sainthood” to refer to canonized sanctity. I also use “heroicity” as a technical term indicating the particular concept of heroism developed in Catholic doctrine and jurisprudence. On this concept see [34].

  4. On the social and political dynamics underlying canonization policies, see in particular [13] and [44].

  5. For instance, inquisitor saints killed by heretics and venerated as martyrs, such as saint Pietro of Verona [15: 15–16]. Another model which has lost its topicality in the twentieth century is represented by a kind of ascetism entailing extreme forms of self-mortification.

  6. This is the case for instance of secular, worker, and female saints, as well as non-European saints.

  7. http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio_20170711_maiorem-hac-dilectionem.html (accessed August 21, 2019).

  8. See [42] regarding this point.

  9. Available in a Latin-Italian version [22].

  10. The constitution was supplemented with an applicative document containing “norms to be observed in Inquiries made by Bishops in the Causes of Saints” (Normae servandae in inquisitionibus ab Episcopis facendis in Causis Sanctorum, 1983). For a discussion of the reform launched by John Paul II, see [43]; for a summary of the modifications in the twentieth century, see [6].

  11. Detailed accounts of the history and procedures of canonization can be found in [29] and [12].

  12. The origin of Maiorem hac dilectionem is reported in [5: 19–23]. In 2017, the Vatican publishing house Libreria Editrice Vaticana issued a booklet containing the Italian version of the apostolic letter, preceded by a preface by Vincenzo Criscuolo [10], Relator General of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and followed by an essay by Matteo Bartolucci [5], Secretary of the Dicastero, an interview with cardinal Angelo Amato [1], prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (first published in L’osservatore Romano, August 26, 2017), and a second essay by Matteo Bartolucci [6]. These texts provide explanations about and reflections on the “offering of life”. Maiorem hac dilectionem is also available in various languages on the Vatican website (https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio_20170711_maiorem-hac-dilectionem.html, accessed August 21, 2019), while [5] is also available on the website of the Osservatorio Romano (http://www.osservatoreromano.va/it/news/la-quarta, accessed August 21, 2019).

  13. This is the case, for instance, of Saint Luigi Gonzaga and the priests and deacons of Alexandria mentioned in the Martyrologium Romanum on February 28, who are venerated “as martyrs”: Lambertini [22] explains that this “as” establishes a simile but does not indicate the proper form of sainthood of these figures, as they must be considered confessors and not martyrs per se.

  14. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html (accessed August 21, 2019).

  15. There are numerous similar examples. Piacentin [31] mentions the cause of canonization of blessed Father Titus Brandsma (1881–1941), martyrized in Dachau, as the factor that provided the impetus for revising jurisprudence on martyrdom.

  16. For a discussion of the semiotic notion of “subject” in general and the idea of a socially shared subjectivity in particular, see [17].

  17. Lambertini recognizes the legitimacy of the Christian’s flight from persecutors when possible and when it does not compromise the moral integrity of the martyr or physically or morally endanger his or her community [22: III/I, chapter XVI]. Along the same lines, Bartolucci observes that the Christian offering his or her own life is “a ‘hero’ in love and fidelity to Christ, because he follows Him down the path of the supreme gift of self, without respites, without regrets, without reservations, but with a conscious and free determination based on heroic charity, so overwhelming as to overcome the natural instincts of [self-]preservation. This does not mean that those who offer themselves totally cannot take all appropriate precautions to protect their lives even while persisting in the radical nature of their offering. Similarly, the potential martyr is authorized to try to save his own life” [6: 39].

  18. “The hero must always be the same, that is, he must never deviate from the path of virtue” [22: III/I, chapter 21].

  19. The documents which are particularly significant in promoting this kind of heroicity are the pontifical discourses held on the occasion of proclaiming the herocity of the virtues of canonization candidates, such as those collected in [37]. For an in-depth analysis of the conceptualization of heroicity in the early modern period (with a focus on Lambertini) and in the twentieth century, see [34].

  20. This is related to a growing preference for active models of sainthood, appliable in a variety of statuses, and a loss of interest for contemplative models, which had a great importance in the past, especially in reference to religious life.

  21. See also [32: chapter 2], regarding this topic.

  22. “It is certain that the heroic offering of life, inspired and sustained by charity, expresses a true, complete and exemplary imitation of Christ, and thus is deserving of that admiration which the community of the faithful customarily reserves to those who have voluntarily accepted martyrdom of blood or have exercised the Christian virtues to a heroic degree.” (Maiorem hac dilectionem).

  23. For an extended semiotic discussion of the epistemological principles underlying the classification of saints, especially in martyrologies and encyclopedias of saints, see [33].

  24. Fontanille also observes that “forms of life are the immediate constituents of the semiospheres” [18: 59].

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Acknowledgements

This paper is part of the research project NeMoSanctI, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 757314).

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Ponzo, J. The Case of the “Offering of Life” in the Causes for Canonization of Catholic Saints: The Threshold of Self-Sacrifice. Int J Semiot Law 33, 983–1003 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09713-w

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