1622 or the Canonization of the Catholic Reformation

The canonization of 1622, in wich Blessed Isidore the Farmer, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila and Philip Neri were inscribed in the Canon of Saints, was memorable for several reasons. It's period of gestation was not easy. Pope Paul v had decided to canonize Isidore the Farmer, a decision that was accepted by his successor, Gregory xv. The strong pressure to which the Pope was subjected both by the Catholic Monarchs and by the Orders to which the new saints belonged, especially the Jesuits, determined their joint canonization in the short term, first adding Blessed Teresa, then Ignatius and Xavier, and, finally, in order to avoid an exclusively Spanish ceremony, at the request of the Congregation itself, Philip Neri. Without denying the political side of the canonization, this paper offers several convergent lines of interpretation in order to demonstrate that the canonization in 1622 was not only the canonization of the protagonists of the Catholic Reformation but, symbolically, of the Church's own Reformation itself.