ARE CANONIZATIONS INFALLIBLE?
Revisiting a Disputed Question
Edited by Peter A. Kwasniewski

For a long time now, the majority position of Catholic theologians has been that canonizations conducted by the pope are infallible and inerrant. A minority current has always existed that disputes this view. Perennial difficulties with the nature and extension of papal infallibility as well as problems peculiar to recent decades in the Church make it timely to reexamine a debate that has lain dormant for too long, and to give proponents of the minority view an opportunity to make their case. The twelve contributors, sharing a desire for a candid and searching inquiry, argue both sides of the question fairly and fully. Each author brings distinct facts, observations, and arguments to the conversation. The result is a panoramic review of the historical, doctrinal, liturgical, and moral aspects of canonization, which displays a greater complexity than summaries in encyclopedias and manuals would suggest. This book is published as a spur to intensive theological engagement with a quaestio disputata that should not be prematurely treated as definitively solved.

Essays by Phillip Campbell • Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P. • Roberto de Mattei • William Matthew Diem • Christopher Ferrara • Msgr. Brunero Gherardini • Fr. John Hunwicke • Peter A. Kwasniewski • John R.T. Lamont • Joseph Shaw • Fr. Jean-François Thomas, S.J. • José Antonio Ureta

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Size: 6 x 9 

ISBN: 978-1-989905-64-7 | $19.95 USD | paperback

ISBN: 978-1-989905-65-4 | $26.95 USD | cloth

274 pages

Review by Phillip Campbell: Unam Sanctam Catholicam: Book Review: Are Canonizations Infallible?

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About the Editor

Peter Kwasniewski (BA in Liberal Arts, Thomas Aquinas College; MA and PhD in Philosophy, Catholic University of America) is an author and speaker on Catholic Tradition, especially in its liturgical dimension. After teaching at the International Theological Institute in Austria and the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austrian Program, he joined the founding team of Wyoming Catholic College in 2006, where he taught theology, philosophy, music, and art history, and directed the choir and schola until 2018. He has published over a thousand articles on Thomistic thought, sacramental and liturgical theology, the history and aesthetics of music, Catholic Social Teaching, and issues in the contemporary Church, and has written or edited twelve books, including most recently Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright (Angelico, 2020), The Holy Bread of Eternal Life (Sophia, 2020), and The Ecstasy of Love in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Emmaus Academic, 2021).