24 April 2023
“We believe that the decision to devote a special issue of the Journal of Early Modern Christianity to the canonizations of 1622, the fourth centenary of which was celebrated recently, needs little explanation.” Thus Franco Motta and Eleonora Rai in the open access preface of JEMC 2/2022.
For those studying the history of sainthood, its patterns over the centuries, and the procedural changes allowing for its recognition, indeed, the five canonizations of that year – Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila, Philip Neri, and Isidore the Farmer – constituted a fundamental turning point in the history of the Roman Church. As Ronnie Po-chia Hsia has pointed out in his “The World of Catholic Renewal” (2005), a sixth proclamation should ideally be added to the five key cases above, one that preceded them by only a dozen years (1610): that of Charles Borromeo (1538–1584), archbishop of Milan, cardinal, reformer, and champion of the Counter-Reformation and post-Tridentine Catholic renewal.
Download here the whole preface.
