The Vatican will next week instruct bishops to be tougher when deciding which candidates for sainthood can begin the official procedures leading to canonisation.
A 20-page document spelling out the rules governing the launch of individual sainthood 'causes' will be presented in the Vatican on February 18.
The instructions ask bishops to show ''greater sobriety and rigour'' when accepting requests to begin the first phase of proceedings, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Vatican's saints department, said recently.
The initial enquiries into a prospective saint's life - part of the work of proving that the candidate was sufficiently holy are usually handled in the diocese where he or she died.
As the head of the diocese, it is the local bishop who starts the process and oversee the first phase, which ends when a dossier of evidence is sent off to the Vatican to be examined by cardinals.
Cardinal Saraiva Martins said the new document was needed ''in order to respond better to the new spirit introduced by Benedict XVI'' in the area of beatifications and canonisations.
Beatification, with which a holy person earns the title Blessed, is the last rung on the ladder to canonisation and full sainthood.
Soon after his election, Benedict sought to draw a clear line between beatification, which means a person can be venerated on a local level, and canonisation, which means that the person is a model for the whole Catholic Church.
Breaking with John Paul II's habit of personally presiding over both sorts of ceremonies, Benedict has delegated beatifications to a cardinal and only presides over canonisations himself.
Critics of John Paul II said his approach, along with the high numbers of beatifications and canonisations during his pontificate, had devalued sainthood in the eyes of the world.
By tightening up on access to the sainthood process, the Vatican's new document is expected to reduce the number of would-be saints on the Vatican's books.
Cardinal Saraiva Martins firmly rejected suggestions that under John Paul the Vatican had turned into a ''saint factory'', saying people who thought this understood ''nothing about saints''.
Talking about saints last December, Benedict XVI said they contribute to making the Church's message ''more credible and attractive''.
He also said that contact with their tradition and legacy was always useful. ''It purifies and elevates the mind,'' he said.
