Cardinal Semeraro: Historical research essential to understanding saints’ lives
October 21, 2026
The prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints highlighted the importance of historical research in understanding and appreciating the lives of the saints.
Speaking at “La santità nella storia“ (Sanctity in history)—a three-day conference organized by the dicastery—Cardinal Marcello Semeraro said on October 19 that historical research “allows us to recognize how grace operates within a person’s freedom, amid the conditions, and even the contradictions, of his time.”
“Holiness does not erase a person’s humanity; rather, it embraces and transfigures it,” Cardinal Semeraro said. “It does not eliminate history, but instead passes through it, imbuing it with a new orientation. This is what makes the work of the historian necessary.”
He explained that the historian “cannot be content with merely restating an image already established by popular devotion; rather, he must reconstruct the concrete events, critically examine the sources, distinguish the actual occurrences from subsequent interpretations, and understand the context in which a specific spiritual experience took shape.”
In the keynote address that followed Cardinal Semeraro’s introduction, Professor Roberrto Rusconi discussed developments in the historiography of the saints, changes in canonization procedures in the Church’s history, and what he described as the “politics of canonization.”
Pope St. John Paul II’s 1983 apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister, which reduced the waiting period for saints’ causes from 50 years after death to five years, allowed for “the predominant role of direct witnesses, including those who had experienced the miracles themselves,” said Rusconi.
The rule that “martyrdom exempts a candidate from the requirement of a verified miracle” is also of great importance, Rusconi added.
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Further information:
- Semeraro: il santo vive nella storia, ma le imprime un nuovo orientamento (Vatican News, 10/19/26)
- La santità nella storia (Dicastero delle Cause dei Santi)
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