The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints

Before 1588: from popular acclaim to Roman reservation

During the first Christian millennium, the recognition of a saint largely rested on local popular veneration, ratified by the bishop of the place: this is how the cults of most martyrs and great confessors of the faith were born. Pope Alexander III, as early as 1170, began to restrict this episcopal freedom by requiring apostolic approval for every new beatification^[7]. The drive towards centralisation gathered pace at the end of the twelfth century: the popes judged it necessary to frame the authority of bishops more tightly, in order to prevent hasty, poorly investigated cults tainted by local interests^[8].

Sixtus V and the birth of the Congregation of Rites (1588)

It was Pope Sixtus V, the great reorganiser of the Roman Curia, who gave this centralisation its definitive institutional form. By the bull Immensa Aeterni Dei of 22 January 1588, he erected the Sacra Congregatio Rituum — the Congregation of Rites — entrusted both with regulating divine worship and with handling the causes of saints^[9]. For almost four centuries, these two missions — liturgy and holiness — remained united in one and the same institution, until their separation by Paul VI in 1969.

Urban VIII: the exclusive pontifical reservation (1625–1634)

Half a century later, Pope Urban VIII definitively closed the door to local initiatives. By the decrees of 13 March and 2 October 1625, then by the bull Coelestis Hierusalem Cives of 5 July 1634, he reserved exclusively to the Apostolic See the right to canonise and the right to beatify, putting an end to any possibility for a diocesan bishop to authorise on his sole authority public worship of a Servant of God^[10]. This reform nevertheless introduced a safety valve: for very ancient, uninterrupted cults already widely spread before 1534, Urban VIII admitted the possibility of recognition without an ordinary trial — the seed of what would become equivalent canonisation^[11].

Benedict XIV, former Promoter of the Faith turned legislator of holiness (1708–1758)

The most decisive figure in the early history of the dicastery was none other than a pope who had first been its own official. Prospero Lambertini, appointed Promoter of the Faith — that is, charged with examining each cause with a critical eye — as early as 1708, exercised this office for decades before becoming pope under the name of Benedict XIV in 1740^[12]. Drawing on this unique experience, he wrote between 1734 and 1738 his monumental treatise De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et Beatorum Canonizatione ("On the Beatification of the Servants of God and the Canonization of the Blessed")^[13], which remains to this day the classic reference of all the canon law of holiness. The work, in four books, includes a systematic treatment of miracles that has been hailed as "the first reasoned exposition of Catholic paranormology" and which gave the Church its true medical code for the examination of prodigious healings^[14]. It was also Benedict XIV who, as Promoter of the Faith and then as legislator, formally theorised equivalent canonisation, reserved for causes benefiting from an immemorial cult, a constant reputation of holiness and an uninterrupted tradition of miracles^[15].

Pius XI and the historical section (1930)

In the twentieth century, the rise of the methods of historical criticism required the Congregation of Rites to equip itself with experts capable of scientifically evaluating ancient sources. By the motu proprio Già da qualche tempo of 6 February 1930, Pope Pius XI created within the Congregation a Historical Section, entrusted with the research needed to investigate "historical" causes — those of Servants of God long dead, for whom no eyewitness survives — as well as with the critical revision of the liturgical books^[16]. This section remained in operation until the 1969 reform, when its historico-hagiographical expertise was taken over by the two new congregations born of the split^[17].

Pius XII, John XXIII and the birth of the Consulta Medica (1948–1959)

Alongside historical expertise, the Church has organised since the Middle Ages a medical appraisal of alleged miraculous healings; from the eighteenth century onwards, a formal register of expert physicians was established for this task^[18]. This ancient practice truly took structured form in the twentieth century: in 1948, Pope Pius XII instituted a distinct Commission of physicians and Medical Board; in 1959, Pope John XXIII merged the two bodies into a single Medical Board (Consulta Medica), which remains to this day the instance charged with examining, from the strict standpoint of science, each healing presented as miraculous^[19].

Paul VI: the 1969 split and the birth of an autonomous congregation

After the Second Vatican Council, the great reform of the Curia undertaken by Paul VI profoundly affected the ancient Congregation of Rites. By the apostolic constitution Sacra Rituum Congregatio of 8 May 1969, the Pope definitively separated the two missions it had carried since 1588: on one side the Congregation for Divine Worship, on the other the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, endowed with three distinct offices — the judicial office, that of the General Promoter of the Faith, and the historico-juridical office^[20]. This split established, for the first time in the history of the Church, a Roman institution devoted exclusively to the discernment of holiness, freed from purely liturgical questions.

A trial judged too slow, too costly, too little collegial

In the 1970s, the procedure inherited from the seventeenth century — refined by Urban VIII and codified in 1917 — appeared increasingly burdensome: it multiplied tribunals (first an ordinary diocesan trial, then a so-called "apostolic" Roman trial, duplicating each other), stretched over decades, and left little room for the diocesan bishop, whose role was largely limited to investigating a dossier that Rome then reworked almost entirely. On 25 January 1983, Pope John Paul II promulgated the apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister — "The Divine Teacher of perfection", in reference to Christ, the model and source of all holiness^[21]. The text opens with a fundamental theological reminder: by baptism, all the faithful "truly become sons of God and sharers in the divine nature, and are therefore truly holy"^[22], and the Church proposes some of them to "the imitation, veneration and invocation" of the faithful as witnesses who draw them towards holiness^[23].

John Paul II justified his reform with a twofold observation: on the one hand, "recent progress in the field of historical studies" made it necessary to equip the competent Congregation "with machinery better suited to its task, so as to respond more adequately to the demands of historical criticism"^[24]; on the other hand, the most recent experience "has shown the advisability of further revising the manner of investigating causes", in order to respond to "the needs of experts" and to "the wish of Our Brothers in the episcopate, who have often asked for a simpler process, while preserving the solidity of the investigation"^[25].

The decisive changes of 1983

The 1983 reform, completed by the Normae servandae of 7 February 1983^[26], profoundly transformed the procedure:

• It merged the two distinct trials (first diocesan, then Roman "apostolic") into a single inquiry, conducted under the ordinary authority of the diocesan bishop, in a spirit of collegiality in keeping with Vatican II^[27].
• It abolished the office of General Promoter of the Faith as it had existed until then — the famous adversarial debate between the postulator and a "devil's advocate" charged with systematically contesting every element of the dossier^[28].
• It created a College of Relators, specialist priests charged with supervising the drafting of the historico-critical account of the life, virtues or martyrdom of the Servant of God — the future Positio^[29].
• It reduced the time requirements (the fifty-year interval after death, long the rule, was brought down to five years, barring pontifical dispensation) and the number of required miracles^[30].

"Christ Jesus, the divine Teacher and Model of perfection […] loved the Church as his bride and gave himself up for her in order to sanctify her." — Pope Saint John Paul II, apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister, preamble, 25 January 1983^[31]

It was therefore not a relaxation of rigour that John Paul II sought, but a more collegial and more scientific procedure: the inquiry remained entrusted to the same demands of historical truth, but it was henceforth conducted first by the local bishop, supported by competent historians and theologians, before being submitted to Roman judgement.

The reform of the administration of the goods of causes (2016)

The cost and financial management of beatification causes had, in the 2010s, been the subject of repeated criticism — accusations of opaque management, of disproportionate sums demanded of postulators, of conflicts of interest around certain administrators of causes. On 4 March 2016, Pope Francis approved new Norms on the administration of the goods of causes of beatification and canonisation, on an experimental basis for three years, abrogating those set by John Paul II in 1983; the watchword of this text was explicitly transparency^[32]. The new norms require that a fund administrator distinct from the postulator be appointed for each cause, bound to respect the intention of donors, to present annual accounts and to transmit verifiable financial statements to the bishop and then to the dicastery^[33]. A contribution, set by the dicastery and communicated by the postulator, is owed by the party supporting the cause at precise stages — submission of the acts of the diocesan inquiry, appointment of the relator, submission of the Positio, before the Plenary Congress of theologians^[34] — so that each payment corresponds to a verifiable stage of the procedure, and not to an opaque lump sum.

In the same year, on 23 September 2016, a Regulation of the Medical Board (Consulta Medica) was approved by Cardinal Angelo Amato, then prefect, and by Msgr Marcello Bartolucci, secretary: it sets precise qualified-majority thresholds — at least 5 votes out of 7 or 4 out of 6 for an alleged miracle to pass medical examination — limits to three the number of possible re-examinations of the same case, raises to nine the number of members for a re-examination, and imposes the strictest secrecy on all those taking part in the examination of a presumed miracle^[35]. This regulation expressly aims to guarantee "the historical and scientific truth" of each case submitted, by competent medical experts, even before the intervention of the theological consultors and, as a last resort, of the Pope himself, the sole authority empowered authentically to recognise a miracle^[36].

The offering of life, a fourth path to holiness (2017)

On 11 July 2017, by the apostolic letter in the form of a motu proprio Maiorem hac dilectionem — a title drawn from the word of Christ, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" (Jn 15:13)^[37] — Pope Francis opened a new canonical path to beatification, distinct both from martyrdom and from the heroicity of virtues: oblatio vitae, the offering of life. The text recognises as "worthy of special esteem and honour" those faithful who "have voluntarily and freely offered their life for others and persevered with this resolve unto death"^[38], without thereby suffering the hatred of the faith that characterises martyrdom in the strict sense — for example a priest or religious who dies caring for contagious patients, or a father who refuses treatment so as to let his unborn child live. This new path thus joins, in the living law of the Church, martyrdom and heroic virtue.

On 19 March 2022, on the solemnity of Saint Joseph, Pope Francis promulgated the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium on the Roman Curia, which came into force on 5 June 2022, the day of Pentecost. The text everywhere substitutes the word "dicastery" for "congregation", without altering the substance of the competences set by Pastor Bonus in 1988^[39]. The Congregatio de Causis Sanctorum thus became the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, its competences being redefined in articles 98 to 102 — the current juridical basis of its action, detailed below.

Pope Leo XIV, elected on 8 May 2025 after the death of Francis on the preceding 21 April, confirmed in the very first weeks of his pontificate Cardinal Marcello Semeraro as prefect^[40], and received him in audience on multiple occasions throughout 2025 and 2026 to authorise the promulgation of new decrees — martyrs, heroic virtues, miracles^[41]. On 6 December 2025, Leo XIV also renewed part of the college of members of the dicastery, appointing in particular Cardinals Rainer Maria Woelki (Archbishop of Cologne), Angelo De Donatis (Major Penitentiary), Roberto Repole (Archbishop of Turin) and Ángel Fernández Artime (Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life), as well as Bishops Fortunato Morrone, Alfonso Vincenzo Amarante and Sławomir Oder — the latter well known for having been the postulator of the cause of Saint John Paul II^[42].

The most visible event of this beginning of pontificate for the general public remains the joint canonisation, on 7 September 2025 in Saint Peter's Square, of two young laymen: Carlo Acutis (1991–2006), an Italian teenager passionate about computing and the Eucharist, and Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901–1925), a Turin student committed to serving the poor — see below the section devoted to them^[43].

Instructing and judging causes (arts. 98–99)

Article 98 of Praedicate Evangelium sets out the whole mission of the dicastery in a single sentence: "The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints deals with all that concerns causes of beatification and canonization, according to the prescribed procedure"^[44]. Article 99 specifies the division of roles between Rome and the diocese:

"The Dicastery establishes special norms and assists, through counsel and guidance, the diocesan/eparchial Bishops who are responsible for instructing the cause. It examines the acts of already-instructed causes, verifying that the procedure has been followed in accordance with the norms, and expressing a judgement on the merits of the causes in order to submit them to the Roman Pontiff." — Pope Francis, apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, art. 99 §§1–2, 19 March 2022^[45]

This twofold function — normative (setting the rules and guiding bishops) and judicial (verifying and judging the merits of dossiers already investigated) — sums up the relationship between the diocesan level, where the bulk of the concrete inquiry takes place, and the Roman level, where the definitive judgement is made before the decision of the Pope himself, alone empowered to beatify or canonise.

Administering the Fund of the assets of causes (art. 100)

Article 100 entrusts the dicastery with a discreet but essential competence for its credibility: "The Dicastery oversees the application of the norms governing the administration of the Fund of the assets of the causes"^[46]. This follows directly from the 2016 financial-transparency reforms discussed above: the dicastery does not merely examine the holiness of a candidate, it also supervises the sound management of the sums collected to finance each cause.

Authenticating sacred relics (art. 101)

Article 101 assigns the dicastery a mission less known to the general public: "The Dicastery establishes the canonical procedure to be followed for verifying and declaring the authenticity of sacred relics and for guaranteeing their preservation"^[47]. This competence extends a very ancient tradition of the Church — the authentication of relics by an ecclesiastical seal — but it is now institutionally attached to the same organ that judges the holiness of the person from whom these relics come.

The title of Doctor of the Church (art. 102)

Finally, Article 102 entrusts the dicastery with a rare doctrinal prerogative: "It belongs to the Dicastery to judge the merits of attributing the title of Doctor of the Church to a saint, after having obtained the votum of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on his or her eminent doctrine"^[48]. A canonised saint — an indispensable prior condition — becomes a Doctor of the Church only after a second judgement, this time on the eminence of his or her doctrinal teaching, rendered jointly by this dicastery and by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose theological opinion (votum) is required before any final decision. Article 84 §2 of the same constitution recalls, from the symmetrical point of view, that the competence of the Causes of Saints remains "specific and exclusive" and cannot be absorbed by another dicastery, not even that of the Eastern Churches for the causes of Eastern saints^[49].

The diocesan phase: the postulator and the bishop's inquiry

Every cause begins with the initiative of a postulator, a person or institute mandated to bring the request for recognition before the bishop of the diocese where the candidate died. In the Roman phase, the postulator's main role is to prepare the Positio, the dossier that will demonstrate the martyrdom or heroic virtues of the future blessed, which the theologians of the dicastery will have to study^[50]. Before that, in the diocesan phase, the postulator assists the bishop in gathering testimonies, the candidate's writings and the available historical documents. This diocesan investigation, conducted under the ordinary authority of the bishop since the 1983 reform, constitutes the documentary foundation on which the whole rest of the procedure rests.

The Positio: the thesis of holiness

Once the diocesan inquiry has been transmitted to Rome, the College of Relators, created in 1983, designates a relator charged with supervising, together with the postulator, the drafting of the Positio super vita, virtutibus et fama sanctitatis (or super martyrio for martyrs) — literally, the "dossier on the life, virtues and reputation of holiness". The Positio is a genuine academic thesis, presenting in critical fashion the life, work and practice of the virtues of the Servant of God on the basis of the acts of the diocesan inquiry^[51]. For ancient causes — concerning a candidate long dead, with no surviving eyewitness — a commission of historians intervenes alongside the theologians, directly continuing the legacy of the Historical Section founded by Pius XI in 1930^[52].

The Congress of theological consultors

The Positio, once completed, is submitted for examination to a group of theological consultors, convened in Congress: their task is to evaluate whether the dossier establishes on sufficiently solid grounds, according to the required theological and historical criteria, either the martyrdom, or the heroic practice of the virtues, or the offering of life of the candidate^[53]. A favourable opinion from this Congress is the condition for moving on to the next stage.

The Promoter of the Faith: the end of the "devil's advocate"?

The 1983 reform abolished the former office of General Promoter of the Faith as it had operated since the seventeenth century — charged, in a quasi-judicial procedure, with systematically raising every possible objection against the cause, hence its popular nickname of "devil's advocate"^[54]. The dicastery retains today a Promoter of the Faith, a theologian prelate who watches over the theological and methodological rigour of each dossier — a post held since 7 January 2023 by Msgr Alberto Royo Mejía^[55] — but his function is no longer that of a systematic institutional contradictor: criticism of the dossier is now shared between the diocesan bishop, the relators, the theological consultors and, for the miracle, the physicians of the Consulta Medica.

The Consulta Medica: the miracle under the gaze of science

When the cause requires a miracle — as is the case for most beatifications and canonisations by way of heroic virtue or the offering of life — the medical dossier is submitted to the Consulta Medica, the Medical Board born of the 1959 merger. According to the Regulation approved in 2016, a college of six to seven physicians (raised to nine in the event of a re-examination) studies the available scans, X-rays and medical reports; the qualified majority required for a case to pass this stage is at least 5 votes out of 7 or 4 out of 6, and no dossier may be re-examined more than three times^[56]. This strictly scientific appraisal never pronounces on the "miraculous" character of a healing — a judgement of theological order, reserved to the Pope himself — but only on the medical inexplicability of the fact in the light of the current state of science. Benedict XIV already distinguished, in his 1734–1738 treatise, several degrees of miracles according to their object — from the raising of the dead to the instantaneous healing of an illness deemed incurable^[57]: a classification which, adapted, continues to inform the work of the physicians of the Consulta Medica today.

The session of cardinals and bishops, then the judgement of the Pope

If the theological opinion is favourable, and if a miracle has, where applicable, passed medical examination, the dossier is submitted to a final collegial judgement: the ordinary session of the members of the dicastery, cardinals and bishops, who examine the whole dossier before transmitting it to the Pope^[58]. It is the Pope alone, in the last instance, who decrees beatification or canonisation — an act which, for canonisation, engages the infallibility of the pontifical magisterium according to common theological teaching, although this question remains debated in dogmatic theology as to its precise technical status.

The current law of causes recognises four distinct paths by which a Servant of God may be declared blessed, then saint:

Martyrdom

The oldest and most radical path remains martyrdom: death freely accepted out of hatred of the faith. Since the 1983 reform, no miracle is required for the beatification of a martyr — the total gift of his or her life sufficing to establish heroic holiness — but a miracle remains required for canonisation itself.

Heroic virtue

The most frequent path today is that of heroic virtue: it must be established, on the basis of testimonies and writings, that the Servant of God practised, constantly and to an eminent degree, the theological virtues (faith, hope, charity) and the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance). This path requires one miracle for beatification, and a second for canonisation.

The offering of life (2017)

Introduced by Maiorem hac dilectionem, this path covers cases where the gift of life is not caused by hatred of the faith (which would exclude martyrdom in the strict sense), but results from a free act of heroic love — a priest remaining voluntarily at the bedside of contagious patients, a rescuer taking the place of a victim, a mother refusing treatment that would endanger the life of the child she carries^[59]. As with heroic virtue, one miracle is required for beatification and a second for canonisation.

Equivalent canonisation

Theorised by Benedict XIV, equivalent canonisation (or canonizatio aequipollens) allows the Pope directly to recognise, without formal trial or examined miracle, the holiness of a figure benefiting from an ancient, uninterrupted and widely spread cult, a constant reputation of holiness and a long-recognised tradition of miracles^[60]. Pope Francis had recourse to it on several occasions: thus Angela of Foligno (9 October 2013), the Jesuit Peter Faber, companion of Saint Ignatius (17 December 2013), José de Anchieta, Marie of the Incarnation and François de Laval (3 April 2014), and the Martyrs of Compiègne, the sixteen Carmelites guillotined in 1794, canonised in this manner on 18 December 2024^[61].

Current office-holders

These five offices constitute the permanent backbone of the dicastery^[62]. Around them gravitate the College of Relators — specialist priests charged with supervising the drafting of the Positiones — a body of theological consultors convened in Congress according to the causes, and the Consulta Medica, which brings together a large body of expert physicians, of whom a restricted college of six to seven members examines each alleged miracle^[63].

Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect since 2020

Born on 22 December 1947 in Monteroni di Lecce, Apulia, Marcello Semeraro was ordained a priest on 8 September 1971, after studies in sacred theology at the Pontifical Lateran University, where he obtained a licentiate and then a doctorate, before teaching dogmatic theology and ecclesiology there^[64]. He was appointed Bishop of Oria in 1998, then transferred to the suburbicarian see of Albano on 1 October 2004^[65]. His closeness to Pope Francis became apparent when he was appointed, upon the creation in 2013 of the Council of Cardinals (the "C9"), secretary of this group charged with assisting the Pope in the government of the universal Church and preparing the reform of the Curia that would lead to Praedicate Evangelium^[66], an office he held until his appointment as prefect in October 2020. On 15 October 2020, Francis appointed him prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, then created him cardinal at the consistory of 28 November 2020, assigning him the diaconal title of Santa Maria in Domnica^[67]. Under Leo XIV, Semeraro remains at the head of the dicastery, received in audience at regular intervals for the authorisation of decrees of causes^[68].

The new members appointed by Leo XIV (December 2025)

The renewal of the college of members of 6 December 2025 — see above — illustrates the continuity desired by Leo XIV with the practice of his predecessors: associating with the judgement of causes cardinals and bishops of varied profiles, some of whom, like Msgr Sławomir Oder, former postulator of the cause of Saint John Paul II, bring direct and concrete experience of the fieldwork that a cause of canonisation requires^[69].

The joint canonisation of 7 September 2025, in Saint Peter's Square, offers a recent textbook case of the concrete workings of the dicastery. Carlo Acutis (1991–2006), a young Italian who died of fulminant leukaemia at fifteen, passionate about computing to the point of being nicknamed "God's influencer", was recognised as blessed after a first miracle — the healing of a Brazilian child suffering from a congenital malformation of the pancreas — then canonised after a second miracle recognised in May 2024, the healing of a young Costa Rican woman victim of a serious head injury, which occurred within ten days of her mother's pilgrimage to Acutis's tomb to implore his healing^[70]. Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901–1925), a Turin student active in Catholic Action, the Conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Dominican Third Order, who died of poliomyelitis at twenty-four after contracting the disease through contact with the sick people he visited, was canonised on the same day, at the end of a cause opened long before^[71].

In his canonisation homily, Pope Leo XIV summed up in a single formula what these two causes reveal of the ordinary holiness sought by the dicastery:

"Saints Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and to make them masterpieces." — Pope Leo XIV, canonisation homily, Saint Peter's Square, 7 September 2025^[72]

He quoted the very words of the two young saints, which sum up in his view "the simple but winning formula of their holiness"^[73]: Carlo Acutis used to say "Non io, ma Dio" — "Not I, but God" — and the Pope recalled his now-famous image:

"Facing the sun, you get a tan. Facing the Eucharist, you become a saint!" — Carlo Acutis, quoted by Pope Leo XIV, canonisation homily, 7 September 2025^[74]

Pier Giorgio Frassati, for his part, had summed up his own rule of life in a formula which the Pope took up as a teaching for all:

"If you place God at the centre of each of your actions, then you will go all the way through." — Pier Giorgio Frassati, quoted by Pope Leo XIV, canonisation homily, 7 September 2025^[75]

And of his concrete way of living charity — which his friends had jokingly nicknamed "Frassati Impresa Trasporti" (Frassati Haulage Company), so numerous were his trips back and forth laden with provisions for the poor of Turin^[76] — Frassati confided:

"Around the poor and the sick, I see a light that we do not have." — Pier Giorgio Frassati, quoted by Pope Leo XIV, canonisation homily, 7 September 2025^[77]

These two causes show, in their very diversity — a twenty-first-century teenager dead of a fulminant illness, an early-twentieth-century student dead in the service of the poor — that the meticulous procedure described throughout this article has no other purpose than to bring to light, with all the required historical, theological and medical rigour, lives truly configured to Christ: what Pope Leo XIV calls "masterpieces"^[78] to be held up as models to the whole Church.

The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints is neither a mere registration office nor a bureaucratic survival of the Curia: it is the institutional instrument through which the Catholic Church, since Sixtus V in 1588, ensures that a canonisation — the solemn act by which she "recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her"^[79] — rests on an inquiry as rigorous as that of the most demanding historical, theological and medical sciences. From Urban VIII's pontifical reservation to the merger of the Consulta Medica under John XXIII, from the collegiality willed by John Paul II in 1983 to the financial transparency and the offering of life introduced by Francis, down to the resounding canonisations presided over by Leo XIV, this institution embodies a conviction which the Ignispedia holds to be central: holiness is neither an edifying myth nor a mere pious opinion, but a verifiable reality, which the Church has the duty to discern with all the prudence, all the science and all the faith at her disposal.

• Read The Roman Curia to situate this dicastery within the whole central architecture of the Church since Praedicate Evangelium.
• Read The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for the dicastery associated with judging the title of Doctor of the Church and competent in strictly doctrinal matters.
• Read The Dicastery for the Eastern Churches for another dicastery of comparable rank, whose competence over Eastern causes nevertheless remains reserved to the Causes of Saints.
• Read Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur for another Roman mechanism of ecclesial discernment and approval.
• Consult the full text of the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium (19 March 2022) on vatican.va for the detail of articles 98 to 102.
• Consult the full text of Divinus Perfectionis Magister (25 January 1983) and of Maiorem hac dilectionem (11 July 2017) on vatican.va.