See also: the Devil's advocate

During the old process of Canonization by the Roman Catholic church, the promoter of the faith (in Latin promotor fidei ), or the devil's advocate ( advocatus diaboli ), was a lawyer charged by the Church with arguing against the canonization of a candidate.

This station was established in 1587 but was removed by the Pape Jean-Paul II in 1983. This suppression accelerated the process of canonization, making it possible to canonize more than 500 people, and of béatifier more than 1300 people.

This term had suddenly defined a person defending a position in which she necessarily does not believe, simply to feed the discussion, or to present a Against-argument to the position of another debator. This process can make it possible to test the quality of the original argument and to have its weaknesses to its defender.

The expression evokes also the other directions of the word: intercessor, as in the expression “the Lawyer of the poor” , and, in the feudal language, the guard. One finds these two directions of intercessor and guard in the term Avocat (trade).