venerable

venerable, title or respectful form of address, used from early times in Europe, especially for certain clergy or for laypeople of marked spiritual merit. It is also the title given to a candidate in the first stage of being canonized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

(Read Britannica’s article “How Does Someone Become a Saint?”)

Examples of the term being used for both religious figures and royalty abound in the early church and the Middle Ages. St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430 and one of the Fathers of the Church, cited the term in some epistles in reference to bishops. Indeed, the “Venerable,” by which the 7th–8th-century Anglo-Saxon theologian and historian St. Bede is commonly known (“the Venerable Bede,” or “Bede the Venerable”), survives from a contemporary practice of so addressing bishops and abbots and, posthumously, worthy clerics such as Bede. King Philip I of France (reigned 1059–1108) was styled venerabilis and venerandus (“reverential”).

In the Roman Catholic Church, the title “Venerable” is bestowed on a deceased person in the first of the three stages leading to beatification (with the title of “Blessed”) and, finally, canonization (with the title of “Saint”). Initially, the candidate’s cause for canonization must be opened by the bishop of the deceased person’s local diocese. If the cause is accepted and opened by the diocese, the person is recognized as a “Servant of God.” The candidate becomes “venerable” when the individual’s case has been officially accepted by the Roman Curia’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints (originally called the Sacred Congregation of Rites) and when a papal decree announces the candidacy, asserting that the person had virtues of heroic degree.

Priests of the Carthusian order (other than the prior-general) are addressed as “Venerable” (rather than “Reverend,” as in other religious orders).

In the Church of England, “Venerable” is the proper title of address for an archdeacon.