Positio

In the Roman Catholic church, a positio (Positio super Virtutibus) is a document or collection of documents used in the process by which a person is declared Venerable, the second of the four steps on the path to Roman Catholic sainthood. It collects the evidence obtained by a diocesan inquiry into a candidate's heroic virtues in a form suitable for presentation to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Upon presentation, the positio is examined by a committee of expert historians and theologians, and if they find the evidence presented suitable, they may then make a recommendation to the Pope that the candidate be declared Venerable.

Positios can run to over 1,000 pages in length. The time between the preparation of a positio and a recommendation by the committee of historians and theologians can often be measured in decades.