DOSSIER CANONISATIONSDr. John R.T. Lamont: The authority of canonisationsBernard Ardura: Béatifications et canonisations de Jean-Paul IIDominique Dauzet: Faut-il encore canoniser?Cardinal Angelo Amato: Les procès de béatification et de canonisation. Critères, procédures et significationThierry Lelièvre: Faut-il être un grand pour être un saint?Bruno Thévenin: Que Dieu nous fasse saints, et viteJean-Marie Meyer: L'éducateur de ses parents1. Dr. John R.T. Lamont: The authority of canonisationsin Peter A. Kwasniewski ed., Are Canonizations Infallible? (Waterloo, On.: Arouca Press, 2021), 151-162The canonisations of John XXIII and John Paul II, and the announcement of the pending canonisation ofPaul VI, have raised some controversy among traditionalists. On the one hand, objections have been raised tothe conduct of the process of these canonisations and to the claim that these pontiffs exhibited heroic virtue.On the other hand, there has been a tendency to hold that traditionalists should accept that all canonisationsare infallible, because this is thought to be the traditional theological view. This latter tendency seems tohave got the upper hand, with the result that Catholics have largely come to the conclusion that once so-meone is canonised, it is the duty of Catholics to accept their sanctity and to cease questioning their canoni-sation. This essay is intended to reject this conclusion, and to present an alternative view on the subject of theduty of Catholics with regard to canonisations.The view that is being advanced here needs to be carefully explained at the outset. It is not the claim that Ca-tholics are free to accept or reject the truthfulness of canonisations that are officially promulgated by the Su-preme Pontiff, as they please. Nor is it the view that canonisations are not authoritative, in the sense of deri-ving their claim to acceptance purely from the evidence that is presented for the sanctity of the person cano-nised, and not at all from the fact o...