Rola cudów w procesie kanonizacyjnym

Abstract

After the Vatican Council II, interest in the issue of holiness intensified both among the clergy and among lay people. Sources of such an attitude must be sought for in the universal call to holiness which was clearly stressed by that Council. As the result of the Council invitation new patterns for following have started to be sought for, which in consequence awoke the interest of the people of God in beatification and canonization processes. This turn is accompanied by the conviction of the authenticity of the examples of life set by the Church, which due to the examination and confirmation by the special procedure is called canonized holiness. The statistics of entries to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints show however, that the need for patterns of holiness is much greater than the number of positively completed beatification and canonization issues. Quite often the reason of suspension of the issue is lack of miracles or problems with proving them. This state of things arises numerous questions about the role and the necessity of argumentation of miracles in the canonization procedure, especially in the context of skepticism which dominates contemporarily in relation to unusual events. The mentioned doubts and their socio-cultural context will be analyzed in the present article.