Question 451: Why the ?!

The origin of the term ___X___ : During the canonization process of the Catholic Church, The __X__ was a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of the candidate. It was their job to take a skeptical  view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, etc. The ___X____ opposed the ___Y___, who spoke in favour of the candidate. This task is now performed by the Promoter of Justice(promotor iustitiae), who is in charge of examining how accurate is the inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate.


In common practice, a ___X_____ is someone who, given a certain argument, takes a position he or she does not necessarily agree with, just for the sake of argument. In taking such position, the individual taking on the ___X____ role seeks to engage others in an argumentative discussion process. The purpose of such process is typically to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure, and to use such information to either improve or abandon the original, opposing position.


Id X and Y.





The word I was looking for, the term, rather, was Devil's Advocate.