Sunday, May 1, 2011

Do Catholics Worship the Saints?

I woke this morning to watch (part of) the beatification of Pope John Paul II. Here was one of my favorite clips of the day:



While this wasn't the post that I planned to write (and I have to rush to go get the girls ready to go to Mass), I wanted to add a quick note of explanation about Catholics and the saints (mostly because of some of the very hateful things that I stumbled across this morning when I was searching for footage of the beatification).

Catholics do not "worship the dead" when we pray to saints. We do not "elevate them to become Gods." These were just some of the many Catholic-bashing claims that were being made in colorful language (often damning all Catholics to Hell in the same breath) that had been made in the comments section of some of the videos I watched this morning.

So, from a simple layman's point of view, I thought I'd try to clarify a bit.

Basically, when a person is declared a saint the Vatican is simply saying that we know that they are in heaven (through a long process that involves miracles and the saint in questions intercession). That is what a saint is: a person who is in heaven.

Beatification is the third step along the four step process to being declared a saint.

If you have questions about praying to saints ask yourself this: have you ever asked someone to pray for you? Have ever had anyone say "I'll pray for you"?

That's exactly what we Catholics are doing when we ask for the intercession of a saint. It's not worshipping the person. It's asking the saint, who is in heaven with God and loves God dearly, to intercede for us and pray for us (or our intention) to God. Now that's not such a scary thought!

I hope you all have a blessed Divine Mercy Sunday!

3 comments:

  1. Good explanation of how Catholics use saints' intercessions! I know this is a sticking point for many non-Catholics!

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  2. -If you have questions about praying to saints ask yourself this: have you ever asked someone to pray for you? Have ever had anyone say "I'll pray for you"?-
    Yes but the people I ask to pray for me are alive. You are saying these people who are dead have omniscience qualities like God and that is wrong. Jesus said he is the ONLY way to the father and never said pray to anyone else. The saints are those that are saved. I'm not trying to offend you just as a former Catholic, I wish someone would have explained the Bible to me to see how wrong I was.

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  3. Hi Karen-

    That's a good point and I'm really glad you brought it up. I typed up a series of posts to respond because it was just to long for the comment box. I hope you'll check them out! Here's the first one: http://awomansplaceis.blogspot.com/2011/05/do-catholics-worship-saints-and-can.html

    I'm sure my husband would do a better job explaining it, but I gave it a try!

    God Bless!

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I love comments and I read every single comment that comes in (and I try to respond when the little ones aren't distracting me to the point that it's impossible!). Please show kindness to each other and our family in the comment box. After all, we're all real people on the other side of the screen!