"Classes" of Saints?

[LoneWolfRadTrad]

I read that though the Church can determine someone is in Heaven and that this can't be debated, the act of canonizing them to promote them as exemplary saint is not so solid and can be debated.

So... do they have to come up with different "classes" of saints?

[FatherCekada]

The "class" lingo you see in your Missal refers to the liturgical rank of a feast, not whether a saint has a higher or lower place in heaven.

It's part of the system of liturgical rules the Church had to come up with to regulate what happens when the feasts of two or more saints, for instance, fall on the same day. The priest has to know which saint's Mass he's supposed to say and which saint's office he's supposed to recite with his Breviary

[Daniel]

Well obviously some saints were more virtuous than others.  To my understanding, when a person is canonized then we must believe that he is in heaven but we do not need to believe that he lived a virtuous life or that any private revelations associated with him are true.  (Somebody correct me if I'm mistaken.)

[Gerard]

Well obviously some saints were more virtuous than others.  To my understanding, when a person is canonized then we must believe that he is in heaven but we do not need to believe that he lived a virtuous life or that any private revelations associated with him are true.  (Somebody correct me if I'm mistaken.)

"Infallibility of canonizations is not a dogma of the faith, it is the opinion of a majority of theologians, above all after Benedict XIV, who expressed it moreover as a private doctor and not as Sovereign Pontiff. As far as the "Roman School" is concerned, the most eminent representative of this theological school, living today, is Msgr. Brunero Gherardini. And Msgr. Gherardini expressed in the review Divinitas directed by him, all of his doubts on the infallibility of canonizations. I know in Rome, distinguished theologians and canonists, disciples of another illustrious representative of the Roman School, Msgr. Antonio Piolanti, these harbor the same doubts as Msgr. Gherardini. They hold that canonizations do not fulfill the conditions laid down by Vatican I to guarantee a papal act's infallibility. The judgment of canonization is not infallible in itself, because it lacks the conditions for infallibility, starting from the fact the canonization does not have as its direct or explicit aim, a truth of the Faith or morals contained in Revelation, but only a fact indirectly connected with dogma, without being properly-speaking a "dogmatic fact." The field of faith and morals is broad, because it contains all of Christian doctrine, speculative and practical, human belief and action, but a distinction is necessary. A dogmatic definition can never involve the definition of a new doctrine in the field of faith and morals. The Pope can only make explicit that which is implicit in faith and morals, and is handed down by the Tradition of the Church. That which the Popes define must be contained in the Scriptures and in Tradition, and it is this which assures the infallibility of the act. That is certainly not the case for canonizations. It is not an accident that the doctrine of canonizations is not contained in the Codes of Canon Law of 1917 and of 1983, nor the Catechisms of the Catholic Church, old and new. Referring to this subject, besides the aforementioned study of Msgr. Gherardini, is an excellent article by José Antonio Ureta appearing in the March 2014 edition of the magazine Catolicismo." Professor Roberto de Mattei- Catholic Family News interview 4/15/14

http://www.cfnews.org/page88/files/6f68a916ecfd1824ca26cf802db0c2fc-217.html

[LoneWolfRadTrad]

Well obviously some saints were more virtuous than others.  To my understanding, when a person is canonized then we must believe that he is in heaven but we do not need to believe that he lived a virtuous life or that any private revelations associated with him are true.  (Somebody correct me if I'm mistaken.)

This is what I'm saying.  Should there be a footnote?  A sort of, "yes he/she's in heaven, but should not be held as exemplary in the following areas..."?