SANTI, CULTO dei. – It is the demonstration of the religious veneration accorded to the blessed in heaven, on account of the excellent perfection of divine life which they achieved with the help of Grace.
I. NOTIONS. – The c. of the S. in Christianity is essentially different from and inferior to the supreme worship of adoration, or latria (λατρεία), due solely to the Most Holy Trinity and to its individual Persons, as well as, by virtue of the hypostatic Union, to Jesus Christ, in whom, even under the sacramental species, humanity is adored together with divinity in a single act of worship. The religious excellence of the S. and of the Angels consists entirely in their being faithful servants of God, and the worship rendered to them is called the worship of dulia (δουλία = servitude); whereas Mary, privileged above all the servants of God, is the object of a worship which, although essentially different from and in-
(Int. Spartaco Appeliti)
Since they are creatures, all their excellence derives from God as its first source; nevertheless, the worship rendered to them is directed not only to God but also to their persons, since, as servants of God and dependently upon him, they possess a real excellence in themselves. In this sense, the worship whose object is the person of the Angels and the S. is called absolute. By contrast, the worship with which objects that bear some relation to the persons of the S. (relics, images) are honoured is purely relative, since they possess no religious excellence by virtue of their intrinsic value, but solely because of the relation which the person venerating them mentally establishes between these objects and the persons of the S.; hence the worship with which they are venerated is directed entirely to the S.
Public external worship, which is that rendered in the name of the Church as such, may, however, be rendered only to S. and Beati legitimately recognised as such (v. BEATIFICAZIONE; CANONIZZAZIONE), and is today subject to the juridical norms of the Church (v. especially cann. 1255-1257; 1259; 1260-61; 1276-89; 1215 § 2; 2125-35). Its principal expressions are: inscription in the martyrology; celebration of their feasts; dedication of places of worship, such as churches and altars, in their name; their public and liturgical invocation; veneration of their relics and images and, above all, the offering to God of the Sacrifice of the Mass in their honour, that is, in order to praise and thank God for the graces bestowed upon the S. and to pray that, intercession (v.) and subordinately to the mediation of Christ, he may grant us his benefits, especially spiritual ones.
II. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT
That such worship is lawful and beneficial to the spiritual good of the faithful, although not absolutely and universally necessary, is a dogma of the Catholic faith, proposed by the ordinary teaching authority of the Church, especially at the Council of Trent, against the denials of the Protestants (Denz-U, 984–88), particularly Zwingli and Calvin, who asserted that it was a purely human invention, without foundation in Scripture and injurious to the unique mediation of Christ.The Catholic position is perfectly harmonious with the whole of Christian dogma. First, because the religious excellence of the Angels and the Blessed in heaven is real, definitive, and recognized by God himself, since, with the help of Grace, they have truly achieved within themselves an eminent degree of divine life. There is no reason why recognition of this excellence should not be lawful and beneficial. Moreover, if they know our needs and, subordinately to the supreme mediation of Christ, intercede for us, there is no apparent reason why their invocation should be unlawful or useless. Finally, the S. are models of virtue for the faithful, and worship presents them for imitation; for this very reason, such worship is of great usefulness and pedagogical efficacy. That it does not, as proposed by the Catholic Church, detract from the worship due to Christ or from his supreme mediation is demonstrated by the fact that its entire meaning lies in honoring the fruits of Christ’s Redemption and the efficacy of this same supreme mediation, since the religious excellence of the S. is clearly presented as founded wholly upon Christ’s Redemption, and their intercession as ultimately founded upon his supreme mediation. Thus, in reality: “we honor the servants, so that the honor paid to the servants may redound to the Master” (s. Girolamo, Ep., 109, 1).
This perfect intrinsic coherence of Catholic doctrine concerning the cult of the S. with the great dogmas of Christianity, and its perfect correspondence to the laws of religious psychology, explains the subsequent and ever clearer unfolding of this doctrine and of the practice resulting from it in the life of the Church. Scripture already shows its basic principles in operation. The Angels (v.), especially the Angel of the Lord, are objects in the Old Testament of profound, though general, religious veneration (e.g., Ex. 23, 20–22; Num. 22, 31–35; Iov. 5, 13–16; cf. Col. 1, 8; 4, 14; Apoc. 19, 10), because they are glorious beings, servants and messengers of God, his heavenly court, always in his presence (cf. Mt. 18, 10). And although strong warnings are given against a misunderstood worship of the Angels, to which, among others, certain circles in Colossae seem to have been inclined (cf. Col. 1, 9–20; 2, 18–23), and although their subordination to Christ is strongly emphasized (e.g.: Hebr. 1, 5–2, 18), the general principle of the lawfulness and usefulness of venerating them is not thereby in any way impaired.
The same severe prohibition of the use of images made by the Old Testament (e.g.: Ex. 20, 4 ff.; Lev. 26, 1; Deut. 4, 15; 27, 15; Iov. 24, 19) was not only absolute, as is evident from the sculptures in Solomon’s Temple, but was evidently motivated solely by the practical danger of idolatry, amid which the people found themselves in the pagan world, and not by a denial of the religious legitimacy and usefulness of images in themselves. With the change of circumstances, it was therefore natural that the ancient prohibition should be regarded as superseded, without thereby abandoning the spirit of Scripture. Thus it is understandable that, in the history of the Church, in conformity with the entire spirit of revelation and with the principles already explicitly active in Scripture, there should be an increasingly fuller development of the practice of the cult of the S., beginning with that of the martyrs (v. MARTIRIO e MARTIRE), and an increasingly explicit formulation of its doctrine (v. Storia). During the 4th century, the cult of the S. who were not martyrs also began to assert itself: the righteous of the Old Testament; ascetics, among them s. Ilarione; and bishops, including s. Martino di Tours and s. Silvestro papa.
It was the Protestants of the 16th century who, adducing pseudo-dogmatic motives, rose with greater or lesser intolerance against the intercession and veneration of the S. A historical prejudice also began to gain ground: namely, that the cult of the S. was nothing other than a Christian adaptation of the pagan worship of gods and deified heroes. Through this process, polytheistic elements were supposedly infiltrated into Western Catholicism and survived to the present day even in practice, which is substantially identical (cf., e.g.: M. Jugie, Theologia dogmatica christianorum orientalium dissidentium, II, Parigi 1933, pp. 710–17), in the dissident Eastern Churches (v. [confessor]).
In fact, the cult of the S. begins with that of the martyrs, and only after the period of persecutions had ended did people begin to venerate at the place of their burial the bishops most distinguished for their merits and reputation for holiness, and subsequently monks and figures who had become famous in the region. If, with the passage of time and in wholly exceptional circumstances, some person who had never existed came to be venerated, this by no means signifies that it occurred as a continuation of the worship of a pagan deity or hero; rather, the opposite sometimes occurred: the cult of a saint was introduced in order to supplant a superstitious cult. And when error did occur, it was caused by entirely different motives—usually by mistaken interpretations of names and of more ancient documents.
There are, it is true, legends with which, in a later age, the little-known lives of real saints were embellished, and in which there are indeed features derived from legends of pagan gods and heroes. But the apocryphal legend of an authentic saint does not create the saint’s person; it presupposes II.
Conversely, the external form in which the cult of the S. manifested itself in the Christian religion—that is, the form of certain rites and ceremonies, such as the use of incense and candles, the manner in which invocations are expressed, feasts are celebrated, pilgrimages are made, and relics and images are venerated, etc.—all this in the Christian cult of the S.
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may be analogous to parallel pagan practices, insofar as these have nothing repugnant or superstitious about them. This is also extensively attested and acknowledged by the Fathers themselves, and it cannot be held against Christianity, since these are things that are perfectly honorable in themselves and capable of being permeated by a higher form of religious spirit. Felice is the expression of s. Girolamo: “Because we once honored idols, should we not now honor God for fear that it might seem to him that the same honors are being paid to him as to idols? In the first case, veneration was directed toward idols, and therefore we must abhor it; in the other case, it is directed toward martyrs, and therefore deserves approval” (Contra Pigilantium, 7). The spirit that has animated Christian worship of the S. from its beginnings is immeasurably distant from the spirit of polytheistic worship, because every Christian knows that the Saints are not gods, that their excellence and power come from God, and that every honor paid to them returns to God. It cannot, therefore, be asserted that the cult of the S. is an unconscious return to paganism.
III. CONFIRMATION OF THE CULT
This is the juridical recognition by the Holy See of a cult that was legitimately formed during the period extending from the pontificate of Alexander III (1159–81) to 1534, that is, one hundred years before the constitution Caelestis Hierusalem cives of Urban VIII (5 July 1634), by which the Holy See reserved exclusively to itself the approval of such cults (can. 2125).For the history of the cult and the various ways in which it was approved in Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages, see the entries BEATIFICATION; CANONIZATION.
The practical effect of approval of the cult is equal to that of a formal beatification, and thus the juridical term equipollent beatification soon also came into use.
1. History of the procedure for the approval of the cult. — Urban VIII first established the institution of a special ordinary process in the diocese where the cult in question was practiced; this process was to conclude with a juridical sentence by the same Ordinary concerning the existence of the cult itself. The Congregation of Rites was to decide in three successive congregations: 1) on the introduction of the cause; 2) on confirmation of the Ordinary’s sentence, that is, on approval of the cult by the Holy See; 3) on the granting of Mass and Office in honor of the servant of God.
But by the time of Benedict XIV, a twofold form of approval of the cult had already been introduced: one with a view to canonization, in which case the full rigor of the Urbanian procedure was required; the other with a view solely to the granting of Office and Mass. In this second case, which later became the ordinary one, the three indicated congregations were indeed held, but without a preceding canonical process: extrajudicial proofs sufficed. Consequently, the grants of Mass and Office increased to such an extent that the entire institution of approval of the cult lost its purpose. Indeed, toward the end of the eighteenth century, people were content with the mere granting of Mass and Office, without even pronouncing on the cult, and the proofs admitted for such grants were at times exceedingly tenuous.
Under Leo XII, the necessary reaction took place. On 16 (20) December 1826, the Pope issued a decree by which the twofold practice was restored: with regard to a future canonization, with all the rigor of the Urbanian decrees; for the granting of Mass and Office, however, two congregations were established, one to judge the actual existence of the cult, the other for the granting of Mass and Office. As in the time of Benedict XIV, extrajudicial proofs remained admissible.
But Pius IX found himself obliged to demand the Urbanian practice, that is, the institution of an ordinary process concerning the existence of the legitimate cult, both for the granting of Mass and Office and with a view to a future canonization. Nevertheless, the processes ordinarily limited themselves to demonstrating that a certain cult had already existed for 100 or more years before 1634; its origin, authenticity, and the worth of the person (historical existence, life, and virtues) were often not investigated. The consequence was another inflation of approvals of cults, especially under the pontificate of Leo XIII.
Finally, Pius X established a new procedure without any distinction as to whether or not a canonization was intended, parallel in form to the ordinary procedure in all other causes. He retained, as its basis, the ordinary process and the sentence concerning the existence of the cult, but added the regular procedure of the usual three congregations—antepreparatory, preparatory, and general—concerning the heroic nature of the virtues or the martyrdom of the servant of God. Only after the decree on the virtues or martyrdom had been obtained could the examination and approval of the cult proceed. This new and rightly strict procedure was subsequently incorporated into the CIC (can. 2125–35).
If, after this procedure, one wished to proceed, once confirmation of the cult had been obtained, to formal canonization, three miracles worked from the time of the confirmation of the cult were required (can. 2134, 2138).
2. Scope of the cult. — Urban VIII’s idea was to ascertain not only the existence but also the scope of the cult existing in connection with a particular servant of God.
And since formal beatification achieved its complete canonical consistency (v. BEATIFICAZIONE) only toward the end of the seventeenth century, from that time certain disparities began to appear between certain confirmed cults and the restricted cults of those formally beatified. Thus it could happen that a servant of God whose cult had been approved within the limits it had actually attained had already for centuries enjoyed a cult as a saint, not universal, but within a specific territory. According to current law, such a servant of God, after confirmation of his cult, would be equipollently «beatified», and would therefore be entitled only to the honors and prerogatives of those formally beatified. To remedy this diminution of the cult, under Gregory XVI, in 1832, a new formula was introduced: when the cult of the servant of God Gerardo da Villamagna was under consideration, the cause was entitled: «Beatus, sanctus nuncupatus», since it could be established that this cult had been conferred upon him, even in liturgical texts, since the Middle Ages. From then on, cases of confirmations of cults with the designation sanctus nuncupatus multiplied; this designation has, in relation to simple confirmation, a greater or broader significance.