beatification
/bɪˌatɪfɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n
/noun [mass noun]
(In the Roman Catholic Church) declaration by the Pope that a dead person is in a state of bliss, constituting a first step towards canonization and permitting public veneration: a ceremony of beatification in St Peter’s Square...
- Both the Blet and Cornwall volumes are also part of the current struggle over the possible beatification and canonization of Pius XII.
- In the 1990s, a number of bishoprics in Germany, Luxembourg and France began to support his beatification by the Roman Catholic Church.
- We wrote a pretty irreverent piece on the Pope's beatification of two dead shepherd children.
Origin
Early 16th century (in the sense 'action of making blessed'): from Old French, or from ecclesiastical Latin beatificatio(n-), from beatificare 'make blessed', from Latin beatus 'blessed'.