The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-04-27
THE NEXT CATHOLIC SAINT.
Description of the Approaching
Ceremony and Its Effects.

Ceremony and Its Effects.
From the London News.
Joan of Arc has long been popularity
enshrined in the hearts of the French
people as a saint, coming second to the
official patron saint, Ste. GeneTeve-
though, as matter of fact, this decid-
ed femme incomprise has never even
reached the first step of the sanity
erarchy-beatifcati
However, the official journal of the
Vatican announces that the formal
Bull of Canonization of Jeanne dare
will shortly be promulgated. At the
present juncture this step comes, in
deed, rather as a surprise to French
Catholics, as her popularity has dis
tinctly declined within the last few
years.
The insertion of a new saint in the
calendar duly followed by its inclu-
sion in the indispensable Whitaker'D
is certainly little regarded by the or
binary reader. Even those who give
a second thought to the question OF
the originAof these saints have probably
some vague notion that the inclusion
of the name of a new saint is fortuit-
Gus and arbitrary, and Imagine that
the vacancies in this Theological livre
u VI are III the Sllt VI the L OpG anu
the Sacred College. In short, it is sup
posed that the honor of sanctity is a
kind of sacred analogue of the lay or
ders of knighthOod. The average lay
man naturally fails to appreciate the
significance of the numerous stages of
the two processes, Identification and
canonization, which have to be passed
through before a candidate for saint
ship can become duly accredited
saint.
Very few of those who are admitted
into the lower grade of the sanity
hierarchy-be fundamentally reach
the stage of canonization, and what
principle a selection is made from the
ranks of the venerated for full saint
ship is known only to the Pope and
Sacred College. At all events, CEN
turtles usually elapse before the apoth-
costs of beatified takes place. For
instance, St. Vincent de Paul, one of
the most famous saints in the calen-
dar, the founder of the Order of Lit
tie Sisters of the Poor" who was born
in 1915, did not attain full saintship
till 1747.
Originally martyrdom was an assem-
tial qualification for canonization,
those whose claims were based chiefly
on miracles seldom reaching a higher
stage than beatification. OF these
miracles TWO were COIlSlQereQ Ine IT.
reducible minimum"
Perhaps the most famous lay saint
in the Psychological calendar is Louis
TX. But, though the claims of the
King who built the Sainte Chapelle
and brought the sacred crown of
thorns to France might be supposed
to be sufficiently strong, yet the Bull
of Canonlzation was only granted after
a most searching inquiry into the YER
acity of the flfty-seven miracles attri-
buted to his relics.
The procedure in the inquiry into a
saints claim to canonization is usually
submitted to as searching an examina-
ton and scrutiny as are those of a
claimant TO a lapsed peerage in the
English House of Lords. In fact, be-
fore the saint can be formally in
-cribed on the Canon Sanctorum he
must survive the ordeal Of twenty-six
processes, including those for the pre-
liminary stage of Qualification. In the
first instance, commissioners are ap-
pointed by the Pope to institute pre-
llminary inquiries. Their report is SUBJ