Is blue blood bad for holiness? Monarchs rarely make the cut

Published: 2004-07-23

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even with Pope John Paul II's record number of canonizations and beatifications, one category of Catholics has been represented rarely in the past 400 years: monarchs. According to the Vatican's "Index of Saints' Causes," since the modern process for declaring saints began in 1588, only four wore a royal crown before the church officially recognized they wore the crown of sainthood. The four are all women: St. Kunigunde of Poland, St. Hedwig of Poland, St. Isabel of Portugal and St. Jeanne of Valois, queen of France. The "male monarch" category will receive its first entry of the modern era Oct. 3 when the pope beatifies Emperor Charles I of Austria, who also ruled Hungary as King Charles IV. He died in exile in Portugal in 1922. The Catholic Church's calendar of saints does have a fair number of royal males, including: the Roman emperor St. Constantine, St. Stephen of Hungary, St. Louis IX of France, St. Henry II of Germany, St. Vladimir of Kiev and St. Edward the Confessor of England. The kings were declared saints before the 16th century when Pope Sixtus V centralized and codified the process. The numbers could lead someone to ask: Is blue blood bad for holiness, or does sovereignty decrease sanctity?

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