devil's advocate

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devil's advocate:

see canonizationcanonization
, in the Roman Catholic Church, process by which a person is classified as a saint. It is now performed at Rome alone, although in the Middle Ages and earlier bishops elsewhere used to canonize.
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By playing the oppressed liberator and the advocatus diaboli, Sabbath is basically doing what Nikki did: he is trying to "disappear," trying to establish an outsider's mocking position that allows him to shut himself off from other people in order not to be hurt by their violence, not to be infected by their pain.

Portrait of the sexist as a dying man: death, ideology, and the erotic in Philip Roth's 'Sabbath's Theater.'

Indeed, to get a fair representation of the alternatives an advocatus diaboli, and one acting more than pro forma, will be necessary for a reasoned decision among all the alternatives....

Public policy and administration: the goals of rationality and responsibility

Let us now rehearse some of the criticisms that can be made of Xella's interpretation--I am here playing the role of advocatus diaboli, of course, for no explanation is obvious and Xella's may well be correct.