Contact with saints leads people to true spiritual resurrection, says Benedict XVI

Vatican City, Dec 17, 2007 / 14:13 pm

In the Vatican today, Pope Benedict XVI received members of the College of Postulators from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. His message to them was that their work offers the Church witnesses who demonstrate how to lead a holy life in the world today and therefore indispensable.

The Pope began his address to them by mentioning the forthcoming 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Apostolic Constitution "Divinus Perfectionis Magister" with which, in 1983, John Paul II revised the procedures of the causes of saints in order to respond to the wishes of experts and pastors who were calling "for a more manageable procedure, while still maintaining solidity of research in this field, which is so important for the life of the Church.”

"Through beatifications and canonizations," the Pope said, the Church "gives thanks to God for the gift of those of His children who have responded generously to divine grace, honoring them and invoking them as intercessors." 

"Saints, if correctly presented in their spiritual dynamism and historical reality, contribute to making the word of the Gospel and the mission of the Church more believable and attractive. Contact with them opens the way to true spiritual resurrection, lasting conversion and the flowering of new saints."

"All those who work in the causes of saints," said Benedict XVI, "are called to place themselves at the exclusive service of truth. For this reason, during the diocesan inquiry, witness statements and documentary evidence should be gathered both when favorable and when contrary to the fame of sanctity or of martyrdom of the Servants of God."

"Hence, the postulators' role is fundamental, both in the diocesan and apostolic stages of the process; their actions must be above criticism, inspired by rectitude and marked by absolute probity," Benedict said.