Subsisting in the Catholic Church

 I had another question:

I grew up in a Baptist church, became atheist as a teen, pagan in my early 20s, then started feeling strongly the need to pick up a Bible again about two years ago...My husband and his family are all very very Protestant and I think if I tried to become a catholic it would be a huge deal to my husband and I am happy with him leading our family and marriage but I just cannot shake this feeling that I’m supposed to do something regarding the Catholic Church.

My questions are-

1) do Catholics really pray to dead people (Mary & the saints) ?

2) if they do talk to dead people- how is it justified/ok according to their faith if the Bible tells us not to do divination or necromancy ??

3) is being catholic or not catholic a salvation concern? 

 

My response: 

 

 

Do we 'pray to dead people'? I suppose that depends on how you are defining those words. We ask for the prayers of other people, both living and dead. We believe the dead who are with Christ in heaven are not completely isolated and oblivious to the affairs of what is currently going on in the world. The Epistle to the Hebrews says we are surrounded by "so great a cloud of witnesses." What does that mean? It means those who have gone before us and are rooting for us to fight the good fight and finish the race as they have. Just as those who are alive still here on the earth should be praying for us to do the same. 

 

If I ask someone to pray for me, is that saying I am praying to that person? No. It means I am asking for that person to pray for and with me. Because what is the nature of prayer? Prayer is *not* "blab it and grab it" pestering God for stuff and expecting God to be the Great Cosmic Bellhop who brings us all the delights of the heavenly room service. Prayer is to bring our will into the Will of the Divine so that the two are identical and one. Sometimes when we ask for things of necessity, God grants those requests because that it how we can bring our will into alignment with His Well. If we are starving to death and ask God for help, God's Will is that we should eat. Consuming food is part of the Creation that God called good. Likewise, asking God to send me a Mercedes Benz like the old Janis Joplin song...God is probably not going to answer that request because luxury items (while not wrong in themselves) may not be what is best for our soul and what is good for our Christian walk. God did not create a Mercedes Benz on the 6th day and call it good.

 

Now, divination or necromancy are wrong because they are precisely the opposite of the the true nature of prayer. They are seeking the power and knowledge of God by cutting God out of the equation. God is the Master of life and death. The purpose of divination and necromancy are attempting to get answers from the dead about the mystery of death and the afterlife without actually consulting what God has to say about it. It's really an end product of the nature of the Fall in Eden. We are trying to gain the knowledge of the tree of good and evil when God clearly said that is not for you. We are trying to give ourselves divine knowledge without consulting God. Prayer is precisely the opposite of that in that we are seeking God's Will so that our will and God's Will are one and the same. Divination and necromancy lead us away from God, whereas prayer leads us to God.

 

Now, the saints in heaven are no longer sinful. Therefore who better to help us get our will to match the Divine will? Even more so that asking Christians still here in life who are still tempted to sin? This is why we ask intercession of the saints. They have fought the good fight, they have finished the race, they are are now perfected in a realm where sin and evil have no dominion over them anymore. Who better to ask for prayer than them?

 

Now, you also ask is being catholic or not catholic a salvation concern? But, as the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium states, "Christ's Church subsists in the Catholic Church." That leaves open the idea that maybe Christ's Church subsists elsewhere, but we can't speak to that with any authority. All we can point to is what we believe to be the Faith once delivered to the Saints, which is the Catholic faith. It's a good place to start. If you want to read the Vatican II document in its entirety, you can here.

Whether one is Catholic or not, our salvation depends on Jesus Christ. Now, do we believe Protestants can have a meaningful relationship with Christ? Certainly. We do believe as Catholics that it is somewhat harder for Protestants to achieve final salvation because they do not have the fullness of the Faith and the Sacraments, which are the primary vehicles of the Faith for Salvation.