Recent popes are known for canonizing in large numbers: John Paul II canonized 482 saints – more than the 300 or so canonizations in the previous 600 years. A version of that canonization process is still in place. And in 1243, Pope Gregory IX asserted that only a pope had the authority to declare someone a saint. By the 12th century, the church officially centralized the process, putting the pope himself in charge of commissions that investigated and documented potential saints’ lives. Ulrich of Augsburg was the first saint to be formally canonized, by Pope John XV. As a result, it’s impossible to quantify exactly how many saints there are, but some estimates have the number exceeding 10,000. During the church’s first 1,000 years, saints were proclaimed by popular demand. Officially, the Catholic Church teaches that all people in heaven are saints, but some are officially “canonized,” or recognized as having lived lives of heroic Christian virtue and are worthy of imitation. Non-papal saints outnumber canonized pontiffs, of course. To put that in perspective, since 1588, when the Catholic Church created an office called the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the average time between the death of an eventual saint and canonization is 181 years. Nine years later – a lightning flash in Vatican time – John Paul II will be made a saint. (John Paul himself had shortened the waiting period to five years from the traditional 50.) Pope Benedict XVI soon waived the five-year waiting period after a person’s death and officially began the canonization process for his predecessor. Peter’s Square chanted “Santo, subito!” or “Sainthood, now!” in Italian on the day of his funeral. John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, and the hundreds of thousands packing St. It will be the first time in the 2,000-year history of the church that two popes will be declared saints at one time. In the last 1,000 years, just seven popes have been made saints, including the two being canonized on Sunday. Peter, traditionally regarded as the first leader of the church after Christ’s death, 52 of the first 55 popes became saints during Catholicism’s first 500 years. How rare? Roughly 30% of all popes are saints. On Sunday, Popes John Paul II and John XXIII will become the 79th and 80th heads of the Roman Catholic Church to become saints, an event that has become a rarity in modern times.

Catholic saints names and meanings