VATICAN CITY — When Pope Benedict XVI visited Poland for four days last month, two questions inevitably rose to people’s minds.

First, how is Pope Benedict different from Pope John Paul II, his Polish predecessor? Second, how soon can the Pope make John Paul a saint? The two questions are not unrelated.

After more than 20 years experience in a new process established by Pope John Paul II for proposing saints and blesseds, Pope Benedict XVI is putting his mark on the process. He recently wrote the Congregation for the Causes of Saints encouraging the faithful application of those norms, and urging greater seriousness and “ever more vigilant attention to the procedures that lead the Servants of God to the honors of the altar.”

Candidates for beatification and canonization must “truly enjoy a firm and widespread fame of holiness and miracles or martyrdom,” he said.

The Holy Father clarified the need for a candidate to be credited with “a physical miracle, since a moral miracle does not suffice.”

Benedict’s message came as the congregation met April 24-26 to consider revisions to the 1983 norms. He stressed that a declaration of martyrdom must be reserved — as it always has been — for those whose blood was shed at the hands of a persecutor with “hatred of the faith,” whose motives were not simply of a political or social nature.

John Paul’s Saints

Pope John Paul II created more saints and blessed than any pope in history, and told the Church why. He said he wanted to propose models of holiness from all cultures and stations of life. With 1338 beatifications and 482 canonizations, John Paul’s saints and blessed outnumber those of all his predecessors combined since a formal process was established by Pope Sixtus V in 1588.

“John Paul II was showing that sanctity is not limited to Europe or traditional Western nations, and that holiness has not been thwarted by modernity,” said Ed Peters, canonist and Cardinal Szoka Professor at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary.

Nonetheless, Peters said, Benedict in his April letter and by earlier declarations and actions “is now reasserting that traditional categories and definitions, such as that for ‘martyr’ and ‘widespread reputation for holiness,’ are still applicable and will be underscored in the coming years.”

Jesuit Father Paolo Molinari has shepherded 39 successful causes for sainthood or beatification in nearly 50 years as postulator general for the Society of Jesus in Rome. Father Molinari believes Benedict’s insistence on the importance of a “widespread reputation for holiness” stresses the importance of “what is at the root, at the heart of the processes of canonization.”

“Widespread” should go beyond the boundaries of ethnic or national groups, he said, citing the example of Mother Teresa, “who, even before she died, was not only well known, but there was this sense of religious dimension in the people’s admiration.”

Saints become meaningful for the whole Church because “the people instinctively, and not only believers, sense and identify something in somebody something that is not commonplace, even among good Christians,” Father Molinari said. Of great saints, he said, “people have an instinctive intuition of the presence of God in people who have really conformed themselves to Christ.”

‘Careful and Precise’

The process of canonization “is really about faith and therefore must be ruled by theological judgments,” according to Dominican Father Gabriel O’Donnell. Postulator for the cause of Knights of Columbus founder Father Michael McGivney, Father O’Donnell said Benedict’s letter is “less about slowing things down and more about being very careful and precise about the process.”

The Pope’s many years of experience as a cardinal in Rome, serving as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “means that he is attentive to the internal workings of the Roman Curia,” and has the knowledge and ability “to confirm certain directions and make suggestions,” Father O’Donnell said.

Among those suggestions is clarifying a widespread misunderstanding in certain cultures as to the nature of a miracle.

“I can’t tell you how many letters I get with regard to Father McGivney of reports of moral miracles,” Father O’Donnell said. A former chaplain for the Knights, according to Father O’Donnell, “said many times in public that the miracle should be the founding of the Knights of Columbus.”

These attitudes stem from a misunderstanding “that a miracle is something Father McGivney did during his lifetime, rather than something that God does as a sign,” Father O’Donnell continued. “The meaning of the miracle is to discern the digitus Dei (finger of God).”

And, he explained, the Pope himself is looking for a “signal from God” in the form of a miracle to confirm the Church’s judgment that the virtuous life of the candidate is authentic.

Similarly, there are confusions in some places on the nature of martyrdom, Peters said.

“Remember, Catholics are required to accept martyrdom, that is to die rather than to deny the faith,” Peters said.

Extending the notion of martyrdom beyond these specific boundaries “implicitly imposes a much larger obligation on people than is proper,” he said.

A key criticism of recent and historic canonizations expressed by Peters and other commentators is the seeming shortage of lay saints who are canonized for reasons other than martyrdom. Even though promoting the causes of lay people living heroically in ordinary circumstances, and particularly married couples, was an important goal expressed by Pope John Paul II in his 1983 apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister (The Divine Teacher and Model of Perfection), comparatively few lay people have reached the status of saint.

Father Molinari said one reason is because lay candidates lack religious congregations and institutional resources to persist in presenting their causes. Consequently, Father Molinari and other institutionally supported postulators have taken on the causes of lay people outside their congregations.

A majority of lay causes now under way are non-martyrs, according to Fathers O’Donnell and Molinari.

“I’m taking care of the children of Fatima for instance,” Father Molinari said. “Of course they’re not martyrs, they’re not priests or nuns. They are children — beautiful, beautiful children.”

Jack Smith is based in

San Francisco.