During the
canonization process of the Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (
Latin:
promotor fidei), popularly known as the
Devil's advocate (Latin:
advocatus diaboli), was a
canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of a candidate. It was this person’s job to take a
skeptical view of the candidate's
character, to look for holes in the
evidence, to argue that any
miracles attributed to the candidate were
fraudulent, and so on. The
Devil's advocate opposed God's advocate (Latin:
advocatus Dei; also known as the Promoter of the Cause), whose task was to make the argument in favor of canonization.
This task is now performed by the Promoter of Justice (
promotor iustitiae), who is in charge of examining how accurate is the
inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate.
The office was established in 1587 during the reign of
Pope Sixtus V and abolished by
Pope John Paul II in 1983. This reform changed the canonization
process considerably, helping John Paul II to usher in an unprecedented number of elevations: nearly 500 individuals were canonized and over 1,300 were
beatified during his tenure as Pope as compared to only 98 canonizations by all his 20th-century predecessors. In cases of
controversy, the
Vatican may still seek to informally solicit the
testimony of critics of a candidate for canonization.
Aroup Chatterjee, the author of the book
Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict, testified against the late nun as a so-called devil's advocate.
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