The Devil's Advocate

For centuries, the Catholic Church officially employed a "devil's advocate." His role was to attack future saints, contest miracles, and seek all possible flaws in the cases. Without him, several famous canonizations probably would never have taken place.

When a person was proposed to officially become a saint in the Catholic Church, the process could last decades, sometimes centuries. Contrary to the image of a purely spiritual decision, canonization often resembled a truly extremely detailed juridical investigation.

From the 16th century on, a particular figure appears in this procedure: the "promoter of the faith," quickly nicknamed by everyone the "devil's advocate." His job consisted precisely in doubting. While other Church members gathered favorable testimonies for the future saint, the devil's advocate had to seek contradictions, exaggerations, or false miracles. He examined testimonies, questioned accounts of healing, and sometimes attempted to demonstrate that certain events had ordinary explanations.

The role was taken very seriously. In certain cases, the devil's advocate could slow down or completely block a canonization by judging the evidence insufficient. This function shows how much the Church wanted to avoid public errors in recognizing saints. Miracles were subject to particularly meticulous analyses. A supposedly supernatural healing had to be studied in detail to rule out any known medical cause. As centuries pass, these investigations become more complex and closer to a scientific or juridical procedure.

The term "devil's advocate" then exceeds the religious framework to enter common language. Even today, someone who voluntarily criticizes an idea to test its solidity is often described this way. This system also reveals an important idea of law: an institution can sometimes strengthen its credibility by organizing contradiction itself. The official existence of an opponent within the process made final decisions more convincing. At the end of the 20th century, the Vatican greatly simplifies canonization procedures and reduces the power of this function. Some critics then estimate that canonizations become faster and less rigorously contested than before. The story of the devil's advocate fascinates because it mixes religion, law, and staging of doubt. Even in a procedure destined to recognize saints, someone had to be charged with not believing too easily the stories told.