The Birth of Modern Sanctity: The 1622 Canonizations

Abstract

We believe that the decision to devote a special issue of the Journal of Early Modern Christianity to the canonizations of 1622, the fourth centenary of which was celebrated recently, needs little explanation. For those studying the history of sainthood, its patterns over the centuries, and the procedural changes allowing for its recognition, indeed, the five canonizations of that year – Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila, Philip Neri, and Isidore the Farmer – constituted a fundamental turning point in the history of the Roman Church. As Ronnie Po-chia Hsia has pointed out in hisTheWorld of Catholic Renewal (2005), a sixth proclamation should ideally be added to the five key cases above, one that preceded them by only a dozen years (1610): that of Charles Borromeo (1538–1584), archbishop of Milan, cardinal, reformer, and champion of the Counter-Reformation and post-Tridentine Catholic renewal. On one hand, for the Counter-Reformation Church – or Tridentine Church – the canonization ceremonyheld in 1622marked the endof a longperiod of crisis dating back a century or so, to the rise of the Protestant Reformation. Needless to say, rejecting the cult of the saints had been one of the central steps in the formation of Protestant doctrines; it was one of several elements that gravitated around the distinction between theword of Scripture as the authentic source of faith, and the concrete reality of secular traditions Protestantismblamed for corrupting the divinemessage. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) reaffirmed the validity of the cult of saints and images, as well as the seven sacraments and means of sacramental mediation exercised by the Church such as indulgences, relics, jubilees and the belief in Purgatory. And yet almost sixty years passed from the date that decree was issued during the Council’s last session to the proclamations of 1622, pointing to the lengthy phase of reflection in which the Church redrew the contours of its relationship with holiness. The first issue sanctity entailed, as we know,was the balance of power between the center and the periphery, as evidenced by the fact that the 1622 canonizations arrived after a complex period of re-drafting the procedures for recognizing sanctity. This reformulation involved establishing the Congregation of Rites (1588) under Sixtus V (1521–1590, r. from 1585) and creating two