The Holy Father surprised everyone today by declaring Pope Pius XII Venerable! Here is the reaction from Fr. Z:Blindsided!
The title of "Venerable" is given to those whom Holy Church determined within a reasonable doubt lived a heroic life of virtue. The Congregation for Causes of Saints examines the documentation presented to make the case that the Servant of God lived all the virtues in an exemplary manner and then issues a decree concerning those virtues. The decree is presented to the Supreme Pontiff in a consistory (or whatever other moment he considers opportune), and he subsequently determines to promulgate it or not.
Once a person is decreed also by the Pope to have lived a heroic life of virtue and is called Venerable, then there must be be an authenticated miracle before he or she can be beatified.
Paolo Rodari has an interesting comment on his blog Palazzo Apostolico about this decree about Pius XII, which sort of blind sided everyone:
The strategy of Benedict XVI to get the skeptics (among whom many Jews) to
stomach the unblocking of the process of beatification and canonization of Pius
XII was today made clear in a surprising way (no vatican watcher was in a
position to anticipate this). In fact, the Pope, hiding his intentions from
everyone (I have my doubts that even his private secretary knew about it),
promulgated a decree on the heroic virtues of Pius XII together with that of
John Paul II. We knew about Wojtyla. About Pacelli, no.
The Congregation actually issued the decree on heroic virtues for Pius XII some time ago, on 8 May 2007.
But, remember, the Supreme Pontiff must promulgate it. That is what happened today.
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