How does someone become a saint?
Many of the world’s religions bestow special status on people who demonstrate a life of almost perfect virtue. Religions differ on the title assigned to these people. The Catholic church calls them saints. Canonization has been revised in the past 1,000 years, most recently by Pope John Paul II in 1983. Pope John Paul II, who canonized some 300 people, made several procedural changes to the canonization process, including the elimination of the “devil’s advocate” from the review process. The devil’s advocate was the person designated to attack the evidence offered in favor of canonization. The process of becoming a Catholic saint is lengthy, often taking decades or centuries to complete. The canonization process has been in the news off and on over the past few years, primarily because of the movement to make Mother Teresa a saint. Soon after her death in 1997, Mother Teresa’s followers began pressing the Vatican to w
