Dear Gregory:

Well, I am a little confused. I have searched the Internet and have read many articles about Father Paul. These resources claim he is on the road to canonization and is now a Venerable, but not one source I have found gives the date and which Pope declared him a Venerable.

I also cannot find him on any list of Venerables. I find this to be suspicious.

The process of canonization of sainthood begins with the designation Servant of God, then Venerable, then Blessed, then Saint. If Fr.Paul is a Venerable, as people claim, then there should be available the date and Pope who made the determination that he was a Servant of God, and yet another date and Pope (or the same Pope) who declared the priest a Venerable. I can find no evidence of this. If any of our readers knows where to find this information, please let us know.

If terms of praying to Father Paul, assuming he has been made a Venerable, it is not yet appropriate to be praying to him as we do not yet know that he is in heaven. Venerable status only establishes that it has been proven that Father Paul had Heroic Virtue (that means that the candidate exhibited the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, to an heroic degree). At this stage the Church does not make any determination of whether or not the man is in heaven, no feast days are assigned, no churches can be built in his honor, etc.

The Church does allow prayer cards and other materials to be printed to encourage the faithful to pray for a miracle that can be attributed to Father Paul as a sign of God's will that the person be canonized. But, we should not be praying "to" Father Paul yet.

No matter how miraculous and holy his life may appear, until the Church declares him a Blessed, we cannot have any idea that he is in heaven. Declaration of Blessed means that the Church is saying that it is "worthy of belief" that a person is in heaven. We may then have a devotion to him. The definitive declaration of heaven comes only upon canonization of Sainthood.

We need to limit our prayers not for Father Paul intercessions, but to prayers that his cause for sainthood proceed (assuming there is a cause).

There is a great danger in getting the "cart before the horse." Popular devotions in the 15th century thought that Thomas à Kempis, author of Imitation of Christ, a great spiritual work, was a saint too. But, when the Church investigated his cause they found evidence that disqualified him for Sainthood. This is not to mean that Thomas à Kempis is not in heaven now, but it means that we do not know as he did not make the qualifications required for canonization.

For the time being we can admire the apparent holiness of this priest, but must be patient and wait on the church for anything else. To presume what the Church does not in these matters is perhaps the sin of presumption and pride.

I am not convinced that Father Paul is even a Venerable since no evidence can be found at this time to prove that.

If anyone knows when and which Pope(s) made him a Servant of God, and then a Venerable, please let us know.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary