Saintly Work as Religious Course Goes Nationwide

Members of Poland’s clergy have undertaken the first nationwide course for postulators with 33 people participating in a five-day program Nov. 5-9 organized by the Metropolitan Curia in Krakow and Institute of Canon Law at the Papal Theological Academy (PAT).

A postulator within the Roman Catholic Church is a person who proposes and pleads on behalf of a candidate for beatification or canonization.

“The course assists in gaining practical knowledge about the procedures in canonization cases at the diocese level” said Andzej Scaber, Director of Canonizations in the Metropolitan Curia in Krakow according to the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Participants in the course are people who lead beatification and canonization cases in the dioceses or will lead such cases in the future. They were lectured on Church law regarding miracles and documentation, as per the structure, competence and procedures applied by the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

“To be a postulator means to walk in the footprints of a man who was a saint and collect and enshrine them” said course participant Father Jacek Wierzba to Gazeta Krakowska. “The most important feature of a postulator is patience. During the case nothing can be hastened.”

In the Roman Catholic Church each canonization case has 2 parts; firstly in the diocese, from which comes the candidate for the altars and then the Vatican component.

The most difficult and arduous work is collecting witness testimonies which can prove the sanctity of God’s servant. All the documents are sent to the Vatican where the Congregation for the Causes of Saints analyses them.

The final report by this congregation is the basis of a Pope deigning somebody with sainthood, in which at least 2 miracles must have been attributed to the candidate.

Poland’s most renowned postulator is Father Stanislaw Oder who is collecting documents and testimonies about the life of Pope John Paul II.