re: #86 Anymouse

Well, I am an atheist, so my weighing in on the Catholic Church can be viewed from that.

My understanding of sainthood in the Catholic Church is based on living a pious life (not a sinless one, as the Catholic Church, as do other Christian churches); the only sinless person was Jesus.

The requirement to be sanctified is that two distinct miracles that the Church cannot explain through regular physical means (usually medical) are ascribed by those miracles’ witnesses or recipients to be the intervention of the proposed saint.

Thus if a person has cancer and a physician says it is incurable, but the person prays to the future saint and the cancer recedes, this could be ascribed to a miraculous intervention.

The Catholic Church considers all of those who died in a “state of grace” (for varying definitions of that) and presumed to be in Heaven to be saints. Saints with a majuscule S are those to whom observed miracles are ascribed through direct intervention on behalf of the witness or recipient.

To Roman Catholics here, how’d I do on that? (::

Ex-Catholic (5 years Franciscan seminary) here:

You’re very close. RCs also hold Mary to be sinless from the moment of conception—part of the vetting process. Note: I dropped out in the 60’s, so statements could be obsolete, though my Sharia Catholic wife keeps me in touch.