Why Canonisation?

Efforts to have Catherine McAuley, The founder of the Sisters of Mercy canonized as a Saint.

It is God who makes saints. The Church simply ratifies God ’s handiwork and calls it to the attention of the faithful for their encouragement and veneration. When the Church declares that a person is a saint she is saying in effect that this person is with God, that his or her life is worth imitating and that she or he has the power to intercede with God on our behalf. It is the ordinary members of the faithful who bring to the attention of the institutional Church the fact that such and such a person has lived his/her life of Christian virtue in a way that goes beyond what would be expected of an ordinarily good person.