The huge number of
the present Pontiff’s canonizations have certainly been a great concern
to us, for the traditional rules contained in Canon Law, to prevent any
possibility of error or of canonization of a person whose faith and life
were not perfectly exemplary, have been done away with, and replaced with
much less demanding rules. However, hitherto they have been all pre-Vatican
II Saints, and very holy Catholics. But the projected canonization of
the founder of the Opus Dei is different. For he it was who anticipated
and developed 30 years before Vatican II a revolutionary, new, secular
theology of the laity, and accepted the principle of pluralism, accepting
into the Opus Dei men of every faith and religion1.
This indifferentism cannot be considered, according to any traditional
guidelines, as an example of sanctity.
It is ideed accepted
by the theologians as theologically certain that the Church is infallible
in the solemn canonization of the Saints, as distinct from the beatification
of the Blessed.2 The reason
for this is that a canonization is not just a permission for the honor
of a saint, as is a beatification. It is a definition, and a command,
made by the Sovereign Pontiff with the use of his full authority, and
consequently binding on Catholics. Consequently it is similar to a profession
of faith, having as its object the glory of the Saint in heaven.
However, not all
canonized saints are solemnly declared by the Church as such. In the first
ten centuries of the Church’s history, the Popes simply gave their approval
to the veneration of saints and martyrs by the faithful. These are known
today as saints. However, since there was no solemn canonization process,
the full authority and infallibility of the Church are not engaged for
such saints. Consequently, it is not the fact that a person is called
a “saint” that makes it infallible, but the solemn declaration and definition
by the Sovereign Pontiff, as binding on all Catholics. It is upon this
that the answer to the question concerning the infallibility of the canonization
of Escriva depends. If the decree defines formally and obliges the acceptation
of his sanctity, then it will be infallible, regardless of the defects
in the processes for the canonization of saints that exist since Vatican
II. However, if the decree of canonization were not to be solemn, and
not to contain such expressions as “we define” and “we command” the veneration
of this saint, then it would not be infallible, just as the approval of
canonized saints in the early centuries of the Church. The same applied
to Vatican II, for by not wanting to define doctrines clearly, it refused
to use the infallible authority of the Extraordinary Magisterium that
it could have used to condemn heresy.
The question then
arises as to whether, if the canonization is duly performed with solemnity,
we are bound to venerate this particular saint as a model and patron.
St. Thomas states that the veneration that we display towards the saints
is “that by which we believe that they share the glory of the saints3.”
The object of the canonization is then the saints’ vision of God in heaven,
and only indirectly the sanctity of their life and its value as a model
for us. These are consequently not the object of the infallible definition,
and although they would not normally be questioned in a canonized saint,
in such a particular case it would seem possible to seriously doubt these,
whilst still accepting that the canonized saint is in heaven. We could
consequently accept that Msgr. Escriva is a saint in heaven (hardly surprising
for a priest, given his conservative mindset, genuine piety, frequent
reception of the sacraments), without accepting in any way the pluralism
and secularism that he taught.
