Epilogue: Faith Healing

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Dermatologische Praxis & Haarcenter, Wallisellen (Zürich), Switzerland

⁹My son, do not neglect yourself in sickness but pray to the Lord and he will heal you.

…

¹²Then give the physician his place for the Lord created him. Let him not depart from you for his works are necessary.

¹³For there is a time when you must fall into the hands of doctors

¹⁴and they will beseech the Lord that he bless what they prescribe to relieve and cure for your preservation.

Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 38:9–14

Faith and knowledge lean largely upon each other in the practice of medicine.Peter Mere Latham (1789–1875)

Faith healing is healing allegedly through spiritual means. Believers claim that the healing of a person can be brought about by religious faith through prayer and/or rituals that stimulate a divine presence and power toward healing disease. In common usage, faith healing refers to ritualistic practices of communal prayer and gestures, such as laying on of hands, which are claimed to mediate divine intervention in initiating spiritual and factual healing.

Ultimately, belief in divine intervention in illness and healing is related to religious belief.

Claims that prayer, divine intervention, or the ministrations of an individual healer can cure illness have been popular throughout history, and healings have been reported in connection to prayer, a visit to a religious shrine, or simply a strong belief in a supreme being.

Healing is referred to as miraculous, when a sick or injured person recovers unexpectedly and in ways that can’t be explained medically.

By definition, an event is referred to as miraculous when it is not ascribable to human power or the laws of nature and consequently attributed to a supernatural, especially divine, agency. Such an event may be attributed to a miracle worker, Saint, or faith-based leader. Traditionally, theologians contend that, with divine providence, theistic gods work through created nature yet are free to work without, above, or against it as well.

In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (published in 1670), philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) challenged this view and claimed that miracles are merely lawlike events whose causes we are ignorant of. We should not treat them as having no cause or of having a cause immediately available.

Rather the miracle is for combating the ignorance it entails, like a political project.

The miraculous healing of Naaman from his leprosy by the Prophet Elisha in the Old Testament, who advised him to go and wash himself seven times in the Jordan River, then his skin would be restored (2 Kings 5:1–19), may well be viewed today as balneophototherapy for a skin condition that might have been psoriasis rather than leprosy. Nonetheless, there remain a vast number of unexplained miraculous healings, referred to both in the Old and in the New Testaments or related to the visits of religious shrines.

Among the religious shrines with miraculous healing powers, the Sanctuary of Lourdes in France is one of the most prominent, with an estimated 200 million people having visited the shrine since 1860. The spring water from the grotto is believed to possess healing properties, and the Roman Catholic Church has officially recognized 69 healings as miraculous. Cures are examined using Church criteria for authenticity and authentic miracle healing with no physical or psychological basis other than the healing power of the site and water. In fact, the Sanctuary houses a Medical Bureau (Bureau des Constatations Médicales) with the function to transfer medical investigation of apparent cures associated with the shrine of Lourdes to the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (Comité Médical International de Lourdes, CMIL), which consists of an international panel of experts in various medical specialities and of different religious beliefs. CMIL meets annually. A full investigation requires that one of its members investigates every detail of a case in question and reviews the literature around the respective condition to warrant that up-to-date academic knowledge is applied to the final decision.

Traditionally, miraculous healings are believed to happen in response to prayer, and faith healing is best known in connection with Christianity. Specifically, some people interpret the Bible, especially the New Testament, as teaching belief in and practice of faith healing.

According to New Age spirituality, it is also believed that pathways exist through which attitudes and emotions may have effects on physical health.

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the twentieth century. Its central precepts have been described as drawing from both Western and Eastern spiritual and metaphysical traditions and combining them with influences from self-help and motivational psychology. The definition of spirituality (versus religion) relates to every person’s inherent quest for ultimate meaning and purpose in life. That meaning can be found in religious belief but may also be broader to include a relationship with a divinity or transcendence, relationships with others, as well as spirituality found in nature, art, and rational thought. Accordingly, the concept of spirituality is found in all cultures and societies. In contrast, religion represents a system of beliefs and practices observed in a specific community and supported by particular rituals that acknowledge, worship, and communicate with or approach the Divine (in Western cultures) or the Ultimate (in Eastern cultures). Unlike faith healing, advocates of spiritual healing make no attempt to seek divine intervention, instead believing in divine energy.

Either way, from the perspective of neuroscience, spiritual practices, even when stripped of religious beliefs, enhance the neural functioning of the brain in a way that may improve emotional and physical health.

10.1 Earliest Cultures

Intimate connection between medicine and religion has existed throughout history, with magic originally playing an important role. Illness was believed to result from malevolent spirits that entered a person, encroaching on vital functions and resulting in the specific features of the disease. Accordingly, treatments were directed at ridding the patient of these spirits in the form of dances, incantations, and sacrifices. These were performed by highly specialized practitioners, called shamans, who engaged in rituals to reach altered states of consciousness in order to encounter and interact with the world of spirits. Although the causes of disease were understood to lie in the spiritual realm, physical methods were also used to heal. Many shamans had expert knowledge of medicinal plants, and herbal treatments were often prescribed to accompany the spiritual incantations. In many places, shamans supposedly learned directly from the plants native to their area, harnessing their effects and healing properties, after obtaining permission from the indwelling spirits. Such practices are apparently very ancient, and Plato (428/427 or 424/423 BC–348/347 BC) wrote in his Phaedrus that the “first prophecies were the words of an oak” and that those who lived at that time found it rewarding enough to “listen to an oak or a stone, so long as it was telling the truth.”

Today, shamanism survives primarily among some indigenous peoples all over the world (Fig. 10.1). Meanwhile, there is an attempt in some contemporary occult and esoteric circles to reinvent shamanism in a modern form.

Fig. 10.1

Shaman’s house and interior with paraphernalia, Jeju Folk Village, Jeju Island, Korea

The main criticism of modern Western or New Age forms of shamanism involves the notion of cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, and dilution of specific indigenous practices by taking pieces of diverse origins out of their respective cultural contexts and synthesizing them into a set of universal shamanic techniques.

European-based neo-shamanic traditions are focused upon the researched or imagined traditions of ancient Europe, where many mystical practices and belief systems were suppressed by the Christian Church. Some of these practitioners express a desire to practice a system that is based upon their proper ancestral traditions. Some anthropologists and practitioners have discussed the impact of such neo-shamanism as acknowledging indigenous American traditions.

Commonly used in Native American religion and practices, fetishes (derived from the French fétiche, which comes from the Portuguese feitiço, and this in turn from Latin facticius, “artificial” and facere “to make”) represent man-made objects believed to have supernatural powers. Specifically, Zuni fetishes are small carvings made from various materials by the Zuni people. Traditionally, the materials used were indigenous to the region. Besides being made from various stones and other materials, each with its unique properties, the contemporary fetish may carry an offering of a smaller animal or a prayer bundle of carved arrowheads with small disk- or tube-shaped beads made of organic shells or ground and polished stones (heishe). It may be adorned with a heishe necklace, feathers, etchings representing ancient petroglyphs, or an etched or inlaid Heart line (Fig. 10.2). These small items are intended to protect and feed the fetish itself.

Fig. 10.2

Zuni Bear fetish with heishe necklace and etched Heart line, stone (Artist: Eloise Lee)

Typically, Zuni fetishes depict animals such as the wolf, badger, bear, mountain lion, eagle, mole, frog, deer, ram, and others. These carvings have traditionally served a ceremonial purpose for their creators and depict animals and icons integral to their culture. The bear represented the shaman, the buffalo was the provider, the mountain lion was the warrior, and the wolf was the pathfinder. In tradition, each animal is believed to have inherent powers or qualities that may aid the owner and is therefore also called “power animal.”

Power animals are common to shamanic practice. They are the helping or ministering spirit or familiar which empowers individuals and is essential for the success in any venture undertaken. In the shamanic worldview, most persons have power animals which empower and protect them from harm, like guardian spirits or Angels in the Abrahamic traditions. In these traditions, the power animal may also lend the wisdom or attributes of its kind to those under its protection.

According to Zuni mythology, the Bear fetish has the power to heal and transform human passions into wisdom. They believe that Bear is invaluable whenever one is faced with change or transition and that it can be one’s ally when attempting to resolve conflict and forgive oneself or others for errors of the past or when faced with new challenges on the spiritual path. There is a particular kind of depression of the spirit sometimes associated with the deep introspective stage of transition and change. When this occurs, Bear is a reminder that there is a parallel between depression and the natural state known as hibernation, when involvement with the outer world is minimized in order to focus more energy on the inner processes necessary for a successful transition.

Since the bear is associated with shamans in many traditions, this spirit animal can symbolize healing abilities and stepping into the role of the healer.

Initiates of the “Bear Society” in many Pueblo cultures become members of what might be called the equivalent of the American Medical Association. The “Bear Dance” is an ancient ritual once performed as a healing ceremony, where miraculous healing of mind, body, spirit, and soul has taken place (Fig. 10.3).

Fig. 10.3

Dancing Bear, serpentine, Inuit (Artist: Kulula Ituluk)

Ultimately, the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon, conducted a phase 1 clinical study into the effectiveness of shamanic healing as treatment for chronic face and jaw pain. Twenty-three women diagnosed with temporomandibular joint disorder participated in the study. At the end of treatment only four were clinically diagnosed with the disorder present at the beginning of the study.

The medicine of ancient Egyptian is one of the oldest documented. Until the nineteenth century, the main sources of information about ancient Egyptian medicine were writings from later antiquity, with Greek historian Herodotus (484–425 BC), who visited Egypt 440 BC, being the most prominent to document his observations. Finally, in 1822, the translation of the Rosetta stone by French orientalist Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) made the translation of the ancient Egyptian papyri possible, including many related to medical matters. A number of medical practices were effective, such as many of the surgical procedures reproduced in the Edwin Smith papyrus and the recommendations in the area of hygiene, such as to wash and shave the body, to look after diet, and circumcision of males. Egyptian medicine was a far-reaching discipline, including many fields, and enjoying an excellent reputation in the ancient world. Doctors in Egypt, like today, were specialists in their particular fields to include pharmacology, dentistry, gynecology, crude surgical procedures, general healing, autopsy, and embalming.

At the same time, the Egyptians held the belief that illness was caused by an angry god or an evil spirit. For this reason, the Egyptian doctor was also part shaman, who performed rituals and incantations for the ill.

There does not appear to have existed a clear distinction between what nowadays one would consider the very distinct callings of priest and physician.

Thus, an Egyptian suffering from an ailment would seek the services of many different types of healers, including priests. The impact of the emphasis on magic is seen in the selection of remedies or ingredients for them. Ingredients were sometimes selected seemingly because they were derived from a substance, plant, or animal that shared characteristics with the symptoms of the patient. For example, an amulet portraying a hedgehog might have been used against baldness. The Ebers papyrus is full of incantations and applications meant to turn away disease-causing demons. Again, religion and magic were an integral part of everyday life in ancient Egypt. Evil gods and demons were thought to be responsible for many ailments, so often the treatments involved a supernatural element, such as beginning treatment with an appeal to a deity. The Egyptian deity Thoth (Greek form of the Egyptian name Djehuty) was of central significance to Egyptian medicine (and magic), because of his role as the god of writing, of wisdom, and of balance. No less important to the art of healing was his special capacity to write and to recite what is written. For this reason, Thoth was commonly called upon in healing incantations. In art, he was often depicted as an ibis-headed scribe or as a baboon (Fig. 10.4). Thoth’s chief temple was located in the city of Khmun, later called Hermopolis Magna during the Greco-Roman era, in reference to him through the Greeks’ interpretation that he was equivalent to their god Hermes.

Fig. 10.4

Carved steatite baboon representing Thoth, Egypt, Late Period (712–332 BC)

10.2 Old Testament

The Old Testament is the Christian term for the collection of religious writings by ancient Israelites. For the Israelites, the writings of the Old Testament told of their own unique relationship with God, but the overarching Messianic nature of Christianity has led Christians from the very beginning of faith to acknowledge the Old Testament as a preparation for the New Covenant and New Testament. The books of the Old Testament can be broadly divided into the Pentateuch, which tells how God selected Israel to be his chosen people; the history books telling the history of the Israelites from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon; the poetic and wisdom books dealing with questions of good and evil in the world; and the books of the Biblical Prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God.

The key feature that distinguished the Israelites from ancient Egypt and other Near Eastern cultures was their monotheism, the belief in only one God, though Egyptian Pharao Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaton (reign: 1353–1336 BC, Amarna Period), formerly tried to introduce monotheism in Ancient Egypt without avail, with striking similarities between the wording of his “Great Hymn to the Aten” and Psalm 104 in the Old Testament. The psalm is notable among the others for describing YHWH (Yahweh or Jehovah) explicitly as creator deity. German philosopher and theologian Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) remarked, “It is worth studying the Hebrew language for ten years in order to read Psalm 104 in the original.”

In the Old Testament, Jehovah-Rapha, translated “I am the Lord your Physician” or “I am the Lord who heals you,” is one of the seven redemptive names for Jehovah God.

Healing in the Bible is often associated with the ministry of specific individuals, including Abraham (Gen 20:1–18), Moses (Num 12:1–15), Elijah (1 Kings 17:17–24), and Elisha (2 Kings 4:8–17; 2 Kings 4:18–37; 2 Kings 5:1–14; and 2 Kings 13:21). Exodus 15:26 points to God as the source: “²⁶If you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and obey it, and do what is right, then I will not make you suffer the diseases I sent on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.” Faith is trusting the God who heals. Another key distinction is the relationship between moral failure and illness. God’s response to people for breaking his laws was to punish with sickness, though illness was not the only punishment. God also diminished resources, made the land barren, or sent enemies to attack in order to discipline his chosen people. The book of Deuteronomy consistently states that health and wealth are the rewards of God for obedience, whereas sickness and misfortune are his punishments. The Psalms, Proverbs, and the Prophets continue this theme.

When the Israelites set out from Mount Hor toward the Red Sea, they had to make a detour around the land of Edom (Num 20:21, 25). Frustrated and impatient, they complained against Jehova and Moses (Num 21:4–5), and God sent venomous snakes among them. For the sake of the repentant, Moses was instructed by God to erect a serpent of bronze (the Nehushtan) that was to be used to save those who looked upon it (Num 21:4–9). Eventually, King Hezekiah (reign: 715/716-687 BC) instituted a religious iconoclastic reform and “…broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had begun to worship it by burning incense to it; even though, as King Hezekiah pointed out to them, it was merely a piece of bronze” (2 Kings 18:4).

Ultimately, the serpent of bronze in Numbers 21 has become a well-known symbol to Christians because of referral to it by Jesus in the Gospel of John (John 3:14–15): “¹⁴And as Moses in the wilderness lifted up the bronze image of a serpent on a pole, even so I must be lifted up upon a pole, ¹⁵so that anyone who believes in me will have eternal life.” In this passage, Jesus obviously foresaw his forthcoming crucifixion and established the significance of the cross as spiritual healing from the curse of sin.

The worship of serpent deities is found in several ancient cultures, particularly in religion and mythology, where snakes were mostly regarded as entities of renewal and strength. Ancient Mesopotamians believed that snakes were immortal because they could shed their skin and appear forever youthful. Ancient Egyptians worshiped snakes, notably the cobra. Serpents could also be evil and harmful, as referenced in the “Book of the Dead,” in which spell number 39 was made to call upon the repulsion of an evil snake into the netherworld: “Get back! Crawl away! Get away from me, you snake! Go, be drowned in the Lake of the Abyss, at the place where your father commanded that the slaying of you should be carried out.” The patron goddess of Upper Egypt, Wadjet, was represented as a cobra-headed woman. She later became a protective emblem on the pharaoh’s crown and was said to “spit fire” at the pharaoh’s enemies. Another early depiction of Wadjet is a cobra entwined around a papyrus stem, beginning in the predynastic period (prior to 3100 BC), and thought to be the first image of a snake entwined around a staff symbol. Before the arrival of the Israelites, snake cults were well established in Canaan in the Bronze Age (c. 3300–1200 BC), since archaeologists have uncovered serpent cult objects in Bronze Age strata at several pre-Israelite sites in Canaan.

In Ancient Greece, a particular type of nonvenomous snake was used in healing rituals. In honor of the god of medicine and healing, these snakes were introduced at the founding of each new temple of Asclepius throughout the classical world. These snakes slithered around freely on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. From about 300 BC onward, the cult of Asclepius grew very popular and pilgrims flocked to these temples of healing (Asclepieia) to be cured of their ailments. To this day a species of nonvenomous pan-Mediterranean serpent, the Aesculapian snake (Zamenis longissimus), is named after the god.

The snake-entwined staff of Asclepius (the Asklepian) remains a symbol of medicine until today. The erroneous use—especially in the United States—of the staff with two snakes and wings carried by the Greek god Hermes (the Caduceus: Fig. 10.5), instead of the correct Asklepian with only a single snake, as a symbol of medicine originates from the adoption of the Caduceus as its insignia by the US Army Medical Corps in 1902.

Fig. 10.5

Greek god Hermes holding Caduceus, bronze (From the author’s desk)

Finally, taking up serpents or “snake handling” is a religious ritual still practiced in modern times in a small number of Pentecostal churches in rural areas of the United States, particularly the “Church of God with Signs Following.” The practice is said to have originated in 1909 with “Church of God” preacher George Went Hensley (1880–1955) who became obsessed with a passage from the New Testament: “¹⁸They will be able to handle snakes with safety, …; and they will be able to place their hands on the sick and heal them” (Mark 16:18). Eventually, Hensley himself succumbed to a fatal snake bite sustained during a religious service.

10.3 New Testament

The New Testament is the second major part of the Christian biblical canon. Its contents deal explicitly with first-century Christianity. Therefore, the New Testament has frequently accompanied the spread of Christianity around the world and reflects and serves as a source for Christian theology.

The number of specific healings recorded in the Old Testament bears no comparison with those recorded in the Gospels and Acts. In fact there are only twelve recorded in the four millennia of Old Testament history, far less than Jesus or his disciples sometimes achieved in a single day.

The types of healings seem to have a deeper symbolic meaning, such as cures from blindness (Matthew 9:27–31; Mark 10:46–52), deafness (Matthew 9:32–34), paralysis (Mark 2:1–12), and possession by demons (Mark 4:35; Mark 5:1–20), and a prerequisite for a miraculous healing was faith. The symbolism of symptoms bears remarkable analogies to the symptomatology patients with conversion disorder display, which today’s psychoanalysists would attribute to the subconscious as they relate to the failing of the particular organ in question (i.e., hysterical blindness or paralysis).

Nevertheless, the Gospels also testify that Jesus cured physical ailments well outside the capacity of first-century medicine. Most dramatic perhaps is the case of “…a woman who had been sick for twelve years with a haemorrhage. ²⁶She had suffered much from many doctors through the years and had become poor from paying them, and was no better but, in fact, was worse. ²⁷She had heard all about the wonderful miracles Jesus did, and that is why she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his clothes” (Mark 5:26–27). Sure enough, as soon as she had touched him, the bleeding stopped and she knew she was well. After healing her, Jesus tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34). In at least two more instances, Jesus credited the sufferer’s faith as the means of being healed (Mark 10:52; Luke 19:10) but at the same time endorsed the use of medical assistance, when he praised the Good Samaritan for acting as a physician (Luke 10:33).

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them the authority to heal every kind of sickness and disease (Matthew 10:1). He told his followers to heal the sick and stated that signs such as healing are evidence of faith. Jesus also told his followers to “⁸Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure the lepers, and cast out demons” (Matthew 10:8). The apostle Paul believed healing is one of the special gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:9) and that the possibility exists that certain persons may possess this gift to an extraordinarily high degree. God gave Paul the power to do miracles to the extent “¹²so that even when his handkerchiefs or parts of his clothing were placed upon sick people, they were healed” (Acts 19:12), ultimately laying the basis to the cult of Relics in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

To the Protestant reformers Luther (1483–1546) and Calvin (1509–1564), the age of faith healing ended with the demise of the Apostles, and that view has prevailed in churches associated with the Reformation. Nevertheless, miraculous healing practices continue to prevail in the Catholic and Orthodox faiths and have been revived among certain Protestants by the Charismatic Movement and particularly the Pentecostals originating in the twentieth-century in the United States.

10.4 In Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church represents one of the oldest religious institutions and has played a prominent role in modeling Western civilization. It maintains that it is the only true Church founded by Jesus Christ in the first century AD in the province of Judea of the Roman Empire. The New Testament records Jesus’ activities and teachings, his appointment of the twelve Apostles, and his instructions to them to carry on his vocation. In an event known as Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles is understood to signal the beginning of the public ministry of the Catholic Church. Catholic doctrine teaches that the contemporary Catholic Church is the continuation of this early Christian community, that its bishops are the successors of the Christ’s Apostles, and that the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is the only successor to Saint Peter who has Apostolic primacy.

The earliest evidence of the use of the term Catholic Church is found in the “Letter to the Smyrnaeans” that Ignatius of Antioch wrote ca. 107 AD to Christians in Smyrna. Urging Christians to remain closely united with their bishop, he wrote: “Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude (of the people) also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” From the second half of the second century AD, the word began to be used to mean non-heretical, “because Catholics claimed to teach the whole truth, and to represent the whole Church, while heresy arose out of the exaggeration of some one truth and was essentially partial and local.” In 380, Roman Emperor Theodosius I (347–395 AD, reign from 379 to 395 AD) eventually limited the use of the term “Catholic Christian” exclusively to those who followed the same faith as Pope Damasus I of Rome (305–384 AD, papacy from 366 to 384 AD).

The Catholic Church defines its mission as spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the Sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Marriage, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick), and exercising charity. Catholic worship is highly liturgical, focusing on the Mass (or Divine Liturgy) in which the sacrament of the Eucharist (or Holy Communion) is celebrated. The Catholic Church practices closed communion, and only baptized members of the Church in a state of grace are customarily recognized to receive the Eucharist. Catholic social teaching emphasizes support for the sick, the poor, and the afflicted through the corporal works of mercy.

Suffering is essential to the Christian view of the world, and it leads to spiritual renewal.

This view suggests an unavoidable tension between the fate of the soul and the fate of the body. The former is the realm of theology, and the latter of medicine. Nevertheless, throughout the history of Christianity, care for disease and suffering by a physician has been understood not only as appropriate but as a vocation, since the physician is viewed as an instrument of God. This position is consistent with the practice, beginning in the fourth century, of monastic clergy establishing hospitals and facilities for the needy and the old. This approach promoted practical treatment of disease. At the same time, however, and in contrast to this more pragmatic approach to providing relief for the suffering, accounts of miraculous healings began to emerge, many with the use of relics representing the Saints.

The Catholic Church, in particular, holds the Blessed Virgin Mary, as mother of Jesus Christ, in special regard and reveres in its “Apostles’ Creed” the community of Saints.

Miracle healings have allegedly taken place at the sites of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, such as Lourdes, or by intercession of the Saints.

A Saint (from Latin sanctus) is an individual who has fulfilled the criteria set for sainthood by a religious institution. Though the term is mostly commonly used in Christianity, the concept also may apply to other religions. The Roman Catholic Church has more than 10,000 Saints. While some may assume that honoring Saints is something the Church set up later, in fact, it was part of Christianity from the beginning. The first Christian Saints were martyrs who had sacrificed their lives for their faith during the persecution of Christians. Starting with the first martyrs of the early Christian Church, Saints were chosen by public acclaim. Though this was a more democratic way to recognize saints, some Saints’ stories were distorted by legend, and some never existed. Gradually, the bishops and finally the Vatican took over authority for approving Saints. Canonization, the process the Church uses to nominate a Saint, has only been introduced in the tenth century. The process begins after the death of a Catholic whom people regard as holy, often many years after death in order to give perspective on the candidate. The local bishop investigates the candidate’s life and writings for heroic virtue or martyrdom and orthodoxy of doctrine. Then a panel of theologians at the Vatican evaluates the candidate. After approval by the panel and cardinals of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the Pope proclaims the candidate “venerable.” The next step, “beatification,” requires evidence of a miracle (except in the case of martyrs). Since miracles are considered proof that the person is in heaven and can intercede for us, the miracle must take place after the candidate’s death and as a result of a specific petition to the candidate. Only after one more miracle will the Pope canonize the Saint (this includes martyrs as well). The title of Saint tells us that the person lived a holy life, is in heaven, and is to be honored by the universal Church.

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