Aren't beatification and canonization miracles fitted to a candidate already chosen?

🔥The question: “Isn't it a procedure that pins one chance recovery onto someone you already want to make a saint?”

🛡️The Church's answer: Precisely because that must not happen, the investigation of holiness and the investigation of the miracle are kept separate. First the candidate's life and virtues are investigated; then, as a distinct matter, the miraculous event is documented where it occurred, gathering witnesses, medical records, and the course of treatment. The medical board asks whether the recovery was rapid, complete, and lasting, and whether it is explained by known treatments; the theological board examines whose intercession was asked with one mind. Finally the Pope approves the decree. This procedure doesn't remove the possibility of human error, but it is the safeguard that keeps a case from ending with testimony whose conclusion was fixed in advance.

📜What the Church has actually recognized: A miracle decree judges that this particular healing can be attributed to that candidate's intercession; it is not a document approving every legend about the candidate and everything they did in life.

🧐If they press further: “Aren't the medical experts Catholic, so they take sides?” — Expertise and the management of conflicts of interest matter in the review, and medical judgment deals with how far the illness and the recovery can be explained, not with a theological conclusion. Where expert consensus is lacking, a case must not be passed.

✨In one sentence: “Holiness and the miracle are investigated separately, and the case passes through medical, theological, and hierarchical stages. One chance testimony doesn't decide a beatification or canonization.”