Canonizations take money, something that grates at my anticapitalistic sentiments. It feels like this sacred process—of determining someone’s holiness and waiting for signs from God (miracles) affirming it—shouldn’t be influenced by what Pope Francis calls “the dung of the devil.” Yet, it is. It has to be. Compiling all the documents and testimonies for a canonization cause takes time and effort, and people deserve to be compensated for that work. Likewise, the few officials working in the Vatican’s overloaded Congregation for the Causes of Saints deserve compensation, as do all the Roman postulators whose job it is to help the Vatican officials move each cause along.

But this has an unfortunate downside, that sometimes tempts me to want to throw the whole process out. Because of the money and resources it takes, people from poor communities or who do not have religious orders or incredibly dedicated family members or friends who are willing to take on decades of work and expense on their behalf often don’t reach or make it past the initial stages of a canonization cause. And that skews the communion of canonized saints (not those who were never canonized but who were recognized as saints historically) toward those with resources. I don’t think that’s fair or just.

At the times that I do despair about the state of the canonization system, though, one thing never fails to give me hope: the miracles. No matter how flawed our process is, how influenced it is by who can sustain the costs and who cannot, it consoles me to know that at least in this one area, God is putting his finger on the scale in a decisive way. God is weighing in on who is canonized and who isn’t, giving his stamp of approval through a sign that no human can work. And the historic evolution of the church’s canonization process has led to the verification process for those miracles becoming incredibly strict. The church goes to great lengths to make sure that there is no uncertainty around miracles ascribed to a potential saint’s intercession.

I do think there is room for many reforms to the canonization process. But the miracles God works are his way of saying that although the process is imperfect, this person was, indeed, a saint.