The Supreme Pontiff was pleased to refer the matter to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the Roman tribunal competent to deal with such a case. Before this court, all evidence was verified; and a decree was issued attesting the orthodoxy of the teaching of the Venerable Servant of God, his sanctity of life, and the authenticity of the alleged miracles, satisfactorily to have been proved; and granted permission to proceed to Beatification. The Lord Paul P.P. V confirmed this decree; and named three Apostolic Commissioners to carry on the cause in Spain. The proceedings of a Royal Commission are so well understood, that it merely is necessary to say that the business of an Apostolic Commission is to search for information, to hear and weigh evidence, and to compile a report on a given subject. Meanwhile, the claims of Spain to possess the remains of her renowned son were recognized; and on the twenty-third of February 1617, the body of the Venerable Francisco de Borja, (except an arm retained at the Gesù in Rome,) was translated to the chapel of the Jesuit House in Madrid. In 1623, the eight years labours of the Apostolic Commission were concluded; and brought to the usual scrutiny in Rome. Later, the verdict was given to the effect that the sanctity and miracles of the Venerable Francisco de Borja fully had been established; and that, therefore, he was worthy of Beatification: which decision duly was confirmed by the Lord Gregory P.P. XV. Thirty-one years later, on the thirty-first of August 1654, a decree in accord with this decision was issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and ratified by the Lord Urban P.P. VIII[111], Who, on the twenty-fourth of November, published the Bull of Beatification with the Office and Mass in honour of the Blessed Francisco de Borja for the Universal Church. Another seventeen years of public prayers and legal action passed; and on the eleventh of April 1671, the Lord Clement P.P. XI solemnly canonized Saint Francisco de Borja, adding to the Roman Martyrology, which is the official roll of sanctitude, the three lines, in which the Holy Roman Catholic Church delivers Her authoritative judgment, and of which the following is a literal translation: “_Sixth day of the Ides of October. This day, at Rome, is kept the festival of Saint Francisco of Borja, Repositor-General of the Company of Jesus, memorable, having abdicated secular things and refused dignities of the Church, by asperity of life, by the gift of prayer._ In 1680, the reliques of the saint were translated to the gorgeous church in Madrid which the Duke of Lerma built A.M.D.G. To the Greater Glory of God, and of his ancestor St. Francisco de Borja. So, a century after his death, a Borgia was numbered with the Saints.