[1] The Sacred Congregation for Rites was created by Pope Sixtus V on 22 January 1588 in the bull Immensa aeterni Dei.

[4] According to L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis hoped to promote the causes of those less well-known, those from poorer regions, and those who were victims of 20th-century totalitarian persecutions.

[1] The current steps for the recognition of a miracle follow rules laid down in 1983 by the apostolic constitution Divinus perfectionis Magister.

The bishop opens the enquiry on the presumed miracle in which depositions of the eyewitnesses questioned by a duly constituted court are gathered, as well as the complete clinical and instrumental documentation inherent to the case.

[citation needed] In 2016 Cardinal Parolin, under the mandate of Pope Francis, approved new Regulations for the Medical Board of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The current text, explains Archbishop Bartolucci, "is inspired by the previous Regulation approved by Paul VI on 23 April 1976 and, aside from the linguistic and procedural updating, introduces some new elements, such as: the qualified majority, to proceed ad ulteriora to the examination of a presumed miracle, is at least 5/7 or 4/6; the case cannot be re-examined more than three times; for the re-examination of the presumed miracle a Board of nine members is required; the term of office of the president of the Board can be renewed only once (five years, plus another five year term); all those who are occupied with a presumed miracle (promoters of the cause, tribunal, postulators, experts, officials of the Dicastery) are held to secrecy[.

"[8] The decision as to whether martyrs had died for their faith in Christ and the consequent permission of veneration lay originally with the bishop of the place in which they had borne their testimony.

It explains, also, the almost universal veneration very quickly paid to, e.g., Lawrence, Cyprian, and Sixtus II, who were killed by the Roman Emperor Valerian.

It was in the fourth century, as is commonly held, that confessors were first given public ecclesiastical honour, though occasionally praised in ardent terms by earlier Fathers.

It happened, even after these decrees, that "some, following the ways of the pagans and deceived by the fraud of the evil one, venerated as a saint a man who had been killed while intoxicated."