Pope Francis introduces tough new rules for sainthood

VATICAN: Pope Francis has made the Catholic Church's saint-making process harder with tough new rules on the approval of miracles while banning the use of cash payments to doctors involved in the process.

The Argentinian Pontiff has announced that medical experts assessing miraculous cures of would-be-saints must reach near unanimous verdicts while a case cannot be assessed more than three times.

But the saint-making process has become embroiled in scandal recently with leaked Vatican documents revealing that the costs of canonising some are as high as 430,000 Euros while the millions of euros involved are left unaccounted for.

Soon after his election, Pope Francis -- who has called for the Church to be poor -announced a clampdown by freezing the Vatican bank accounts of virtually all those individuals involved in canonisations. 

Over the last forty years, the Vatican has produced an unprecedented number of new saints with former Pope John Paul II canonising more than 400 during his 26-year papacy. And nine years after his death he himself was declared a saint quicker than any other in modern times.

 —Originally published in The News