What Catholics say about Praying to saints and Purgatory

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What Catholics say about Praying to saints and
Purgatory

• Roman Catholicism

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Why Do Catholics pray to saints when they can go
straight to God?

• Catholics ask the saints to mediate for them.
  One reason is that the saints are closer to God
  then we are here on earth. Let us say there is a
  job you want in a certain company and you know
  someone who is a friend of the Boss who is
  hiring. Would you go directly to the Boss or
  would you rather your friend speak about you to
  the Boss first? How about another example, there
  is always that certain person you know, whether
  it be your pastor, priest, or friend, whom you
  always feel that their prayers are stronger for
  what ever reason, and when you ask them to pray
  for your important need, you fell a confidence
  that God will surely hear your request now. This
  is the same reasoning that Catholics use when
  they ask a saint to help them pray for a certain
  intention. You know that the saints prayers are
  a lot stronger than your won because they are
  perfected and in heaven with God.

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Why do Catholics Pray to saints when they can go
straight to God

• Catholics claim they do not pray TO saints but
  they ask saints to pray FOR them
• What Catholics say is different from what
  Catholics actually practice. Many Catholics do in
  fact pray directly to saints and/or Mary, asking
  them for help instead of asking the saints
  and/or Mary to intercede with God for help
• Catholics Go to the Friend of the Boss,
• Christians Go to the Son of the Boss

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Why Do Catholics Pray to Saints when they can go
straight to God?

• The Bible nowhere instructs believers in Christ
  to pray to anyone other than God. The Bible
  nowhere encourages, or even mentions, believers
  asking individuals in Heaven for their prayers.

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Hebrews 416

• 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with
  confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find
  grace to help us in our time of need.

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1 Timothy 24-5

• 5 For there is one God and one mediator between
  God and men, the man Christ Jesus
• Hebrews 725 - Therefore he is able to save
  completely? those who come to God through him,
  because he always lives to intercede for them. Or
  forever

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Romans 826-27

• 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our
  weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray
  for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us
  with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he
  who searches our hearts knows the mind of the
  Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the
  saints in accordance with Gods will.

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Why do Catholics Pray to saints when they can go
straight to God

• Whenever the Bible mentions praying to or
  speaking with the dead, it is in the context of
  sorcery
• witchcraft
• divination
• - activities the Bible strongly condemns
  (Leviticus 2027 Deuteronomy 1810-13)

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Why do Catholics Pray to saints when they can go
straight to God

• God does not answer prayers based on who is
  praying. God answers prayers based on whether
  they are asked according to His will
• 1 John 514-15 - This is the confidence we have
  in approaching God that if we ask anything
  according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we
  know that he hears uswhatever we askwe know
  that we have what we asked of him.

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Ecclesiastes 93-6

• 3 This is the evil in everything that happens
  under the sun The same destiny overtakes all.
  The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and
  there is madness in their hearts while they live,
  and afterward they join the dead. 4 Anyone who is
  among the living has hope?even a live dog is
  better off than a dead lion! 5 For the living
  know that they will die, but the dead know
  nothing they have no further reward, and even
  the memory of them is forgotten. 6  Their love,
  their hate and their jealousy have long since
  vanished never again will they have a part in
  anything that happens under the sun.

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What Catholics say about Purgatory the
origination

• The Catholic Church originated this doctrine at
  the Council of Trent. "There is a Purgatory, and
  souls there detained, are helped by the prayers
  of the faithful, and especially by the acceptable
  Sacrifice of the Altar." (Sess. XXV.)

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What Catholics say about Purgatory

• James Cardinal Gibbons explained their position
  in this way. "The Catholic Church teaches that,
  besides a place of eternal torments for the
  wicked and of everlasting rest for the righteous,
  there exists in the next life a middle state of
  temporary punishment, allotted for those who have
  died in venial sin, or who have not satisfied the
  justice of God for sins already forgiven. She
  also teaches us that, although the souls
  consigned to this intermediate state, commonly
  called purgatory, cannot help themselves, they
  may be aided by the suffrages of the faithful on
  earth. The existence of purgatory naturally
  implies the correlative dogma - the utility of
  praying for the dead - for the souls consigned to
  this middle state have not reached the term of
  their journey. They are still exiles from heaven
  and fit subjects for Divine clemency."
• (Faith of Our Fathers, James Cardinal Gibbons,
  Archbishop of Baltimore, P.J. Kenedy Sons, page
  173).

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What Catholics say about Purgatory

• In the absence of scripture, Catholic defenders
  turn to the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees. Keep
  in mind this is not an inspired document and has
  absolutely no divine sanction. It is not even
  accurate history in some instances. Chapter 12,
  verses 43-46 read
• "And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand
  drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to
  be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking
  well and religiously concerning the resurrection.
  For, if he had not hoped that they that were
  slain should rise again, it would have seemed
  superfluous and vain to pray for the dead . . .
  It is therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to
  pray for the dead that they may be loosed from
  sins."

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Indulgences retrieve people out of Purgatory

• "Indulgences, the remission of temporal
  punishment due to sin after its guilt has been
  forgiven, which the Church grants from the
  treasury of the merits of Christ and His saints."
  (The Catholic Encyclopedia Dictionary, The
  Gilmary Society, page 478).
• The Catholic Church offers a variety of
  indulgences
• 1. For the living.
• 2. For the dead.
• 3. Plenary.
• 4. Partial.
• 5. A 40 day Indulgence.
• Of what benefit are indulgences to the Catholics?
  The same article says, "The Church offers
  satisfaction to the souls in purgatory, from her
  treasury of the merits of Christ, and asks God to
  apply this satisfaction to the souls of those in
  purgatory

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What the Bible says about Purgatory

• The doctrine offers, to the dead, a time for
  penitent sinners to be fully perfected and
  purified prior to entrance into heaven. The bible
  says at the end, when the Lord returns to judge
  the world in righteousness (Acts 1731) those who
  are in sin will go away into everlasting
  punishment (Matthew 2546). There is no reprieve
  from the final sentence pronounced upon those
  guilty of sin.

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Luke 1625-26

• "Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime
  receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus
  evil things but now he is comforted, and thou
  art tormented. And beside all this, between us
  and you there is a great gulf fixed so that they
  which would pass from hence to you cannot
  neither can they pass to us, that would come from
  thence"

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Proverbs 117

• Solomon tells us even now, "When a wicked man
  dies, his expectation will perish, and the hope
  of the unjust perishes"

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What happens when we Die?

• We either go to Heaven or Hades to await Hell.
  Hades is NOT purgatory, it is a waiting place
  until Christ returns to cast all of those who are
  disobedient into Hell (the lake of Fire). You
  cant be bought out, prayed out, baptized out, or
  delivered out of Hades once you are there.
• There is no second chance.