considerable time must elapse before any cause of beatification or canonization could be conducted, from the first steps of the information, inquiry, or process, to the issuing of the decree super tuto. According to the constitution of this Congregation, more than one important discussion (dubia maiora) could not be proposed at the same time. It must be remembered: that the same cardinals and consultors must vote in all discussions; that there was but one promotor of the Faith and one sub-promotor, who alone had charge of all observations to be made with regard to the dubia; and that these cardinals and consultors had to treat questions of ritual as well as processes of canonization and beatification. To execute all this business there was but one weekly meeting (congressus), a kind of minor congregation in which only the cardinal prefect and the major officials voted; in it less important and practical questions were settled regarding rites as well as causes, and answers were given, and rescripts which the Pope afterwards verbally approved. The other meetings of the congregation (ordinary, rotal, and "upon virtues and miracles") might be as few as sixteen in the course of the year. Some other cause must therefore be found for the slow progress of causes of beatification or canonization than a lack of good will or activity on the part of the Congregation of Rites. Bibliography André Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge (1198-1431) [1], Rome, 1981 (BEFAR, 241) [Eng. Transl.Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1987 and Ital. transl. : La santità nel Medioevo, Bologne, 1989]. References 20th-century Catholicism Beatified people Beatif 1914 in Christianity Canon law history Catholic theology and doctrine Canonization