The dramatic increase in canonizations over the past 40 years does not reflect growing piety. It is primarily due to Pope John Paul II streamlining the bureaucratic process and Pope Francis clearing a backlog of 800 fifteenth-century martyrs, revealing the political and administrative nature of saint-making.

The great cathedral-building boom was fueled by the theological innovation of Purgatory. This intermediate afterlife state, which could be shortened by prayers, created a massive market where nobles funded religious institutions in exchange for masses to save their souls, driving immense construction.

Historian Johan Huizinga suggests Joan's identification of her voices with specific saints may not have been a long-held belief. Instead, it could have developed under the intense pressure of the trial, as she struggled to articulate her profound spiritual experiences in terms her interrogators could understand.

The extensive, multi-year process of investigating a candidate for sainthood, including the review of potential miracles, is not free. The costs can run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, acting as a significant financial barrier. Causes often stall indefinitely without a wealthy patron or 'booster' to fund the lengthy investigation.

Studying history can be a calming practice. It reveals that past eras were often far worse than the present, providing a soothing perspective that humanity has endured and overcome similar or greater challenges before. This counters the modern feeling of unique, terminal decline.

Unlike the purely cyclical time of archaic religions, Judeo-Christian traditions introduce a linear, historical dimension. They sanctify specific historical events (e.g., the life of Christ) rather than a timeless, mythical creation event, marking a shift from a purely regenerative to a progressive model of sacred time.

Eschatological prophecies shouldn't be dismissed as mere fantasy. They likely represent lost historical memories of past civilizational cycles, preserved and passed down through allegory. This gives them a powerful, historically-grounded predictive validity for current events.

While the underlying mechanism of OCD is consistent, its thematic content is culturally and temporally sensitive. Obsessions have shifted from fears of syphilis in the 1920s, to HIV in the 1990s, to modern fears around COVID-19 or climate change.

Far from being a rubber stamp, the Catholic Church's process for declaring a miracle is a lengthy, forensic investigation. It employs independent medical experts who are predisposed to find scientific explanations and historically used a 'Devil's Advocate' to argue against sainthood. This rigorous skepticism is designed to ensure the process remains credible.