Why Catholics Pray to Saints

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca

Church fathers on the communion of saints: https://www.churchfathers.org/intercession-of-the-saints

I recently did a couple videos about stupid things Catholics and Protestants say to each other and one particular topic got a LOT of attention which was the idea that Catholics pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints and, as the accusation goes, this is a form of idolatry or divination or some such thing.

And while I made a few quick points in that video, I thought, given how much attention that got, I should give this topic a little more time and nuance here.

To set the stage here, I’m going to repeat what I said in that previous video which is that Catholics do not worship saints, but we do pray to them. And while all worship includes prayer, not all prayer is a form of worship.
In the same way that all singing involves the use of your voice but not all use of your voice is singing.

Prayer just means communication and as Catholics, we communicate with saints and seek their intercession. Now, even if that’s not worship, that’s bad enough in the eyes of many protestants because that is seen as looking for an intermediary other than Jesus or it’s simply communicating with the dead, both of which are forbidden in scripture.

Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/