Making Saints: How The Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes A Saint, Who Doesn'T, And Why

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Simon and Schuster, Jul 23, 1996 - Religion - 462 pages
From inside the Vatican, the book that became a modern classic on sainthood in the Catholic Church.
Working from church documents, Kenneth Woodward shows how saint-makers decide who is worthy of the church's highest honor. He describes the investigations into lives of candidates, explains how claims for miracles are approved or rejected, and reveals the role politics -- papal and secular -- plays in the ultimate decision. From his examination of such controversial candidates as Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador and Edith Stein, a Jewish philosopher who became a nun and was gassed at Auschwitz, to his insights into the changes Pope John Paul II has instituted, Woodward opens the door on a 2,000-year-old tradition.
 

Contents

Preface
3
The Local Politics of Sainthood
21
2
62
3
119
The Witness of Martyrs
127
5
156
6
172
The Science of Miracles and
191
8
251
9
280
ΙΟ
309
Sanctity and Sexuality
336
12
353
The Future of Sainthood
374
Notes
424
Selected Bibliography
431

Heroic Virtue
221

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About the author (1996)

Kenneth L. Woodward, a senior writer at Newsweek, has been the magazine's religion editor for thirty-two years. He lives in Westchester County, New York.

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