Edict and Publication of a Cause of Saints

After accepting the postulator's written request and consulting the appropriate body of bishops, the competent bishop makes the petition public in his diocese or eparchy through an edict affixed at the cathedral or published in the diocesan newspaper. With other bishops' consent, he may publish it elsewhere where the candidate lived, worked, or was known and where relevant information may remain.^[1]

The notice invites every member of the faithful to bring useful information to the bishop's attention. Useful includes documents and testimony favorable to the cause, unfavorable to it, or capable of qualifying a familiar narrative. Edict and Publication of a Cause of Saints is thus an evidentiary invitation under episcopal authority, not a launch announcement asking supporters to demonstrate popularity.^[2]

If the publication produces an obstacle of significant importance, the bishop notifies the postulator so that it may perhaps be removed or answered. If it remains and he decides the cause cannot proceed, he communicates that decision by a reasoned decree. The procedure neither presumes every objection decisive nor permits serious contrary information to disappear behind devotional enthusiasm.

The edict itself is inserted into the acts of the inquiry, preserving proof of what was published and under whose authority. Responses must then be handled consistently with privacy, reputation, safeguarding, archival integrity, and the secrecy of office. Publication opens a channel to the tribunal; it does not make the eventual witness file or confidential correspondence a public dossier.

Publication of the petition does not itself constitute the tribunal, accept every allegation, or inaugurate public veneration. The Supplex Libellus in a Cause of Saints is the postulator's request; the edict is the bishop's notice; the Nihil Obstat of the Holy See in a Cause concerns possible Roman obstacles; and the first session later establishes officials and receives prescribed acts.

It is also the opposite of a plebiscite. Numbers of signatures, shares, or favorable responses cannot prove heroic virtue or martyrdom. Nor does the notice replace a Declaration on Absence of Cult, which addresses unauthorized public cult under the decrees of Urban VIII. Accurate status language should say that a petition has been published, not that Rome has approved or that the Church has declared the candidate a saint.