A new regulation has been approved for the medical commission of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. It involves: a qualified majority, a limited number of re-examinations and payments via wire transfer.
The Holy See has approved a new regulation introducing stricter procedures for medical examinations carried out by the medical commission of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Changes include the introduction of a qualified majority, a limited number of re-examinations when results are contested and payments via wire transfer.
The text was approved last 24 August by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin based on a papal mandate and was published today, carrying the signature of Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Vatican dicastery in charge of beatifications and canonizations. “In addition to the linguistic and procedural adaptation,” the text introduces “some new elements”, explains Archbishop Marcello Bertolucci, Secretary of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in a statement issued by the Vatican Press Office. These changes include “the qualified majority that makes it possible to procede ad ulteriora with the examination of a reported miracle is at least 5/7 or 4/6”. In the past, the decision was made on the basis of a simple majority but in practice, the qualified majority was already adopted under Benedict XVI. Another change is that “a case cannot be re-examined more than three times,” whereas it previously was. Also: “a new commission composed of new members is required for the re-examination of a reported miracle,” whereas in the past, the same commission would re-examine the same case which had previously been rejected or left pending and “the President of the commission can only be re-appointed once (five years plus another five)”. “All those involved in the examination of the reported miracle (promoters of the cause, the tribunal, postulators, experts, dicastery officials) are bound by secrecy” and while in the past payments could be made directly, in person, “experts shall only receive payments via wire transfer”. According to the city of Rome’s list of rates, for example, the two experts who are required to carry out the preliminary examination are due a payment of 500 euros each, while the seven members of the medical commission are due a total of 3760 euros.
“The miracle required for the Beatification of the Venerable Servants of God and the Canonization of Blesseds has always been subject to the strictest examination procedures,” the first paragraph of the regulation states, before providing a brief history of the specialist body for the examination of medical miracles attributed to the intercession of a candidate to the sainthood. Recourse to medical experts dates back to the medieval times. The first register dates back to 1743 (Benedict XIV), a medical commission and a separate medical council dates back to 1948 (Pius XII), the two bodies were merged into a medical commission in 1959 (John XXIII) and Paul VI called for a review of the norms contained in the regulation, once in 1969 and a second time in 1976. The latest revised text dates back to Paul VI’s pontificate (23 April 1976). The regulation published today, is an updated version of that text. The text published today states that the revised version comes following “the promulgation of John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution Divinus perfectionis Magister on 25 January 1983 and this Congregation’s experience over the past few years, which highlighted the need for the Medical Commission’s Regulation to be updated once again”. The drafting of the new regulation began in September 2015.
The new regulation has no retroactive effect on beatifications and canonizations approved in the past. Nor does it have any direct link with certain inefficiencies that emerged in the investigations carried out at Pope Francis’ request, for the reform of the Roman Curia, which then came to the fore during the Vatileaks affair. The regulation is part of a broader, ongoing revision of the general regulation of the Congregation.
The regulation published by the Vatican today, “is for the benefit of the causes which must necessarily be supported by the historical and scientific truth of the reported miracles,” Mgr. Bartolucci said in a statement. “Just as it is necessary for legal evidence to be complete, consistent and reliable, so it is necessary for the examination of this evidence to be carried out in an unbiased, objective way by highly specialised medical experts with a solid experience and then, on a different level, by the congress of consultant theologians and the meeting of cardinals and bishops, before being finally and definitively approved by the Holy Father, who has the sole authority to approve an extraordinary event such as a genuine miracle.”
