1983-01-25 · Vatican City
Reform of the Canonization Process
In 1983, John Paul II overhauled how the Church makes saints, streamlining a process that had become so slow and expensive that holiness needed a budget to be recognized.
On January 25, 1983, Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister, fundamentally reforming the process by which the Catholic Church declares someone a saint. The old process had been in place since Pope Benedict XIV formalized it in the eighteenth century. It was adversarial: a 'promotor fidei,' popularly known as the Devil's Advocate, was assigned to argue against every candidate's cause. The process required two verified miracles for beatification and two more for canonization. Cases routinely took centuries. Many worthy candidates never made it through simply because their supporters lacked the money, political connections, or institutional persistence to keep a cause alive for generations. John Paul II wanted saints from every era, every continent, and every walk of life. He believed the Church needed modern models of holiness, not just medieval Europeans. So he streamlined the process dramatically. He abolished the Devil's Advocate position, replacing the adversarial system with a more investigative one. He reduced the miracle requirement for beatification to one (plus one more for canonization). He empowered local bishops to conduct initial investigations rather than routing everything through Rome. The results were dramatic. John Paul II beatified and canonized more people than all his predecessors combined. By the time he died in 2005, he had canonized 482 saints and beatified 1,338 others. His critics said he cheapened the process, turning canonization into a kind of Catholic celebrity machine. His defenders said he was simply recognizing holiness that the old system had been too slow and too Eurocentric to find. Both had a point. The reform unquestionably made sainthood more accessible and more global. Whether that was a correction of a broken system or a dilution of a rigorous one remains a live debate.
Why it matters
Transformed how the Church identifies and declares saints, dramatically increasing the number and diversity of canonized saints and sparking debate about the meaning and rigor of the process.
What Happened
Pope John Paul II issued Divinus Perfectionis Magister on January 25, 1983, overhauling the canonization process. He eliminated the Devil's Advocate, reduced miracle requirements, and empowered local bishops to conduct initial investigations. He then used the reformed process extensively, canonizing 482 saints and beatifying 1,338 others during his pontificate. The saints he recognized came from every continent and included laypeople, married couples, and modern figures alongside traditional clergy and religious.
Why It Still Matters
The reform changed what sainthood looks like in the Catholic imagination. Before John Paul II, saints were disproportionately European clergy and religious from centuries past. After him, the calendar includes Vietnamese catechists, Ugandan teenagers, married Italian couples, and a growing number of people from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The debate about whether this expansion strengthened or weakened the concept of sainthood continues. But the reform succeeded in its core goal: giving Catholics around the world models of holiness who look like them.