THE SHAPING OF SANCTITY: NEW APPOINTMENTS TO THE DICASTERY FOR THE CAUSES OF SAINTS
The Holy Father has announced a new slate of Members for the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the curial body charged with examining causes of beatification and canonisation and with judging the heroic virtue, martyrdom, and miracles attributed to candidates proposed for the Church’s universal veneration. While the Prefect and officials conduct the daily work of the Dicastery, its Members—cardinals and bishops—exercise real deliberative influence, particularly in complex or contested causes.
The appointments therefore merit close attention, not merely as routine curial housekeeping, but as indicators of how sanctity itself is being interpreted, framed, and authorised in the present pontificate.
Cardinal members and ecclesial signals
Among the newly appointed Cardinal Members is Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Metropolitan Archbishop of Cologne. His inclusion is striking. Cardinal Woelki has been a polarising figure within the German Church, associated doctrinally with resistance to the more radical proposals of the German “Synodal Way,” yet pastorally embroiled in severe controversy over governance and abuse-related credibility. His presence on the Dicastery introduces a figure whose public witness has been sharply contested, raising questions about how prudential judgment and ecclesial credibility are weighed alongside doctrinal alignment in appointments of this kind.
Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, Major Penitentiary and former Vicar General of Rome, brings long-standing curial experience and a background steeped in moral theology and sacramental discipline. His career reflects a pastoral emphasis on conscience, accompaniment, and penitential practice—concepts increasingly foregrounded in contemporary ecclesial discourse and not without relevance to the evaluation of heroic virtue.
The appointment of Cardinal Roberto Repole, Metropolitan Archbishop of Turin and Bishop of Susa, signals the continued elevation of a younger generation of Italian bishops shaped by post-conciliar theology. Repole, a theologian by formation, represents a more academic and pastoral model of episcopal leadership, one less rooted in the older Roman curial culture that historically dominated canonisation processes.
Also appointed is Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, S.D.B., Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and former Rector Major of the Salesians. His inclusion reinforces the prominence of religious orders within the current curial structure and ensures that causes emerging from consecrated life will be judged by figures deeply embedded in that ecclesial world.
Episcopal members and procedural expertise
Among the episcopal appointments, Archbishop Fortunato Morrone, Metropolitan Archbishop of Reggio Calabria-Bova, adds diocesan and regional pastoral experience, particularly from southern Italy—a context often rich in popular devotion and local cults, which historically generate causes for sainthood.
Archbishop Alfonso Vincenzo Amarante, C.SS.R., Rector Magnificus of the Pontifical Lateran University, represents the academic-theological dimension of the Dicastery’s work. A Redemptorist moral theologian, his appointment underscores the growing role of contemporary theological frameworks in assessing virtue, intention, and moral development—areas that were once approached more juridically and ascetically in canonisation inquiries.
Finally, Bishop Sławomir Oder of Gliwice brings rare and direct procedural experience, having served as Postulator of the cause of Pope John Paul II. His presence provides institutional memory of the modern canonisation process, particularly as it applies to recent pontiffs and globally prominent ecclesial figures.
A broader trajectory
Taken together, these appointments reflect a Dicastery increasingly shaped by post-conciliar pastoral theology, contemporary academic moral reasoning, and ecclesial figures formed after the great juridical tightening of canonisation processes under Pope Benedict XIV and, more recently, Pope Pius X. While expertise and experience are evident, the composition also raises perennial questions: how rigorously heroic virtue will be assessed, how ecclesial controversy will be weighed, and whether sanctity will continue to be understood primarily as conformity to Christ crucified—or as a broader narrative of pastoral witness and historical impact.
Conclusion: The theology that judges sanctity
The significance of these appointments cannot be grasped merely by listing names or offices. At stake is the theological lens through which sanctity itself is discerned, narrated, and ultimately authorised. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints does not operate in a vacuum; it judges holiness according to theological assumptions—often implicit—about virtue, moral responsibility, human freedom, and the meaning of Christian perfection.
In this context, the growing influence of post-conciliar pastoral theology is decisive. This theological approach, developed in the decades following the Second Vatican Council, tends to prioritise pastoral accompaniment, discernment, and integration over the older juridical and ascetical frameworks that once governed the Church’s evaluation of holiness. Where earlier canonisation processes demanded clear, demonstrable evidence of heroic virtue—understood as exceptional conformity to Christ crucified through discipline, sacrifice, and moral clarity—post-conciliar pastoral theology often begins instead with lived experience, psychological complexity, and historical circumstance. Holiness is thus more readily framed as a journey than a conquest, as process rather than decisive transformation.
Closely allied to this is the rise of contemporary academic moral reasoning, particularly as formed in modern theological faculties. Here moral judgment is frequently filtered through personalist, developmental, or proportionalist frameworks, in which intention, mitigating circumstance, and subjective limitation weigh heavily. The classical emphasis on objective moral order, stable habits of virtue, and ascetical struggle—so central to the Church’s traditional understanding of sanctity—recedes in favour of narrative coherence and pastoral plausibility. Although repeatedly cautioned against by the magisterium, these approaches remain influential in practice, especially among those tasked with theological consultation and evaluation.
When such frameworks dominate the evaluative culture of the Dicastery, the risk is not merely theoretical. Heroic virtue can quietly be redefined: no longer exceptional self-mastery under grace, but sustained pastoral engagement; no longer radical detachment from the world, but meaningful presence within it; no longer clear triumph over sin, but credible navigation of moral complexity. Controversy, ambiguity, and even institutional failure may then be contextualised rather than weighed as obstacles to a cause.
This is why the composition of the Dicastery matters so profoundly. The Church does not simply declare saints; she forms the Church’s memory of holiness. The models she elevates shape the aspirations of clergy and laity alike. If sanctity is presented less as conformity to Christ in His Cross and more as effectiveness, visibility, or narrative resonance, the faithful are subtly catechised in a different gospel—one less demanding, less ascetical, and ultimately less supernatural.
None of this denies that authentic holiness is possible in every age, including our own. But it does insist on a perennial truth: the Church must judge sanctity by the measure of Christ, not by the categories of the age. As canonisations accelerate and ecclesial legacies grow more contested, the theological assumptions guiding the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints deserve sober scrutiny. For in shaping the saints of tomorrow, the Church reveals—quietly but unmistakably—what she believes holiness truly is today.
¹ Vatican Press Office, Nomination of Members of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, official communiqué.
² John Paul II, Divinus Perfectionis Magister (1983), norms governing the causes of saints.
³ Prospero Lambertini (Benedict XIV), De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et Beatorum Canonizatione, foundational juridical treatise on canonisation.
⁴ Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Sanctorum Mater (2007), procedural instruction.
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