Well written! My husband is going through OCIA and I’m attending some sessions to re-catechise, something our priest said is they Protestantism leads to atheism and I definitely agree for the reasons you’ve noted in this essay! It becomes ‘too minimal’.
“Is baptism absolutely necessary? Christ saved the thief on the cross without it. Yet baptism remains necessary because Christ commanded it. Baptism is the proper, fitting way to enter the Church.
Is the Eucharist absolutely necessary? God could sustain you spiritually without it. But Christ said, “Do this” because it’s the fitting way to receive Him.
Is praying to Mary absolutely necessary? No. But it is fitting, proper, and part of a Christian life well-lived.”
Respectfully, from your protestant brother in the faith, this argument doesn’t hold up. Christ said to obey His commandments, but He never told us to pray to Mary.
Your first two examples show things that He did demonstrate in scripture, but again, no scripture tells us to pray to Mary.
To be clear, because I know text can be read combatively, I have tremendous respect for many Catholic traditions. I just do not understand this one.
I used to be Protestant, and I totally understand your objection as I struggled with praying to the saints the most, other than the papacy, before converting to the Catholic faith.
I think the first thing to address is simply to understand, “Does everything we practice in our faith have to be specifically mentioned in the Bible? Or are those practices acceptable as long as they don’t contradict Scripture?” If it’s the former, then Protestants can’t have Sunday services, Bible studies, and praise and worship events either.
Praying here simply means “to ask”, in old English literatures the word was pretty commonly used such as, “I pray to thee”. Now, words do evolve in their usage over time, and I totally get it that in the Protestant worldview, prayer is something you only do to God as prayer and worship are intertwined, but not necessarily so in the Christian history. I hope I’m steelmaning your position here.
The historical Christian view is that we pray to others in the sense that we ask for their intercession to pray to God. I wanted to make it clear that the final destination is still God, and we don’t elevate the saints to the level of God. Are there abuses? Yes in certain cultures where paganism is mixed with Catholicism, but that doesn’t mean we should abolish the practice altogether.
Can we technically pray directly to God? Yes we can, but why wouldn’t we pray for one another? Paul said in his letter to Timothy that prayers and intercessions should be made for one another. One another in the context of the Church, the mystical body of Christ. The objection may be, well they’re dead, but in Revelation 5 it shows the intercession of the saints. Dead people can’t pray, but they’re alive in Christ as God is God of the living (Matthew 22).
I’m pretty sure others including Pat can add here, but hope this helps. God bless.
First, I appreciate the good-faith answer. I am often hesitant to engage online, because I don’t want folks outside the faith to ever think I am hating on my Catholic brothers. I purposely use phrases like brother or sister in the faith to show my belief we are in the same family, just different branches.
As an aside, I admit to my “branch” splintering far too much, leading to many false theologies and beliefs.
Secondly, I am familiar with that stance. To a certain extent, I understand it. However, my thought is: if we can pray to the Father through the Son, why would I not? Also, this post says we “have” to pray to Mary.
And again, I do not see it commanded or demonstrated in scripture. Frankly, I find comfort knowing the saints pray for us, and I understand the thought of asking them to do so, but to say it is a requirement is still not something I am prepared to accept.
No problem. I totally can see how some people use their anonymity as a license to be vile online.
The splintering branch you described is unfortunately a ripple effect of the Reformation, that we can start our branch out of nowhere with whatever we believe out of the Scripture, with each generation trying to reinvent the wheel thinking the previous generation got it wrong. Now, we Catholics have our own issue too, especially with liberal parishes and bishops, but with a universal authority, we can tell which group is right or wrong.
Anyway, again this is just a difference in philosophical understanding of “necessity”. Is “necessary” in legal terms ? Is it in terms of fittingness? If we see God through the lens of Him being just a judge that oversees our faith and intellectual assent to believe and gives us salvation in return, it’s a very transactional view of salvation. God doesn’t “require” us to pray for one another in the sense that we’ll go to hell if we don’t, but we see the saints in heaven as part of one Church, and praying for one another is part of loving one another as Jesus commanded. In the book of James, the prayer of a righteous person is effective. The saints are already perfected in heaven as no one can even think of sinning in there and their wills are perfectly aligned with God’s, so why wouldn’t we ask for them to pray for us?
In short, we can pray straight to the Father through the Son. I still do that a lot even after becoming Catholic. But why does it have to be an either/or situation?
I don’t believe it has to be either/or, but the headline and the original post says “have.”
This article says you have to. That means it is necessary, which I don’t think needs to be redefined.
Even going to Paul’s letter in 2 Timothy, the word prayer is the Greek “proseuchē,” which means a prayer addressed to God, not a request made to someone else to pray for us.
If this article said it is a good thing to ask Mary, or any of the saints, to pray for us, I would say sure. May not practice it, but I could understand it as good. But it says “have to pray to,” and that’s where I respectfully disagree.
I do understand the prayers themselves are requests for intercession. I attended a Catholic school, Hail Mary is engrained in my brain, and I’ve said a rosary or too in my time. The older I get, the more I respect and even revere some of the Catholic traditions. So much so I would rather err on making that overstated then risk you or any of my Catholic brethren to think I am attacking.
This is so simple but a wonderful eye opener. Thank you for the education on the different types of necessity!
Thank you!
Well written! My husband is going through OCIA and I’m attending some sessions to re-catechise, something our priest said is they Protestantism leads to atheism and I definitely agree for the reasons you’ve noted in this essay! It becomes ‘too minimal’.
“Is baptism absolutely necessary? Christ saved the thief on the cross without it. Yet baptism remains necessary because Christ commanded it. Baptism is the proper, fitting way to enter the Church.
Is the Eucharist absolutely necessary? God could sustain you spiritually without it. But Christ said, “Do this” because it’s the fitting way to receive Him.
Is praying to Mary absolutely necessary? No. But it is fitting, proper, and part of a Christian life well-lived.”
Respectfully, from your protestant brother in the faith, this argument doesn’t hold up. Christ said to obey His commandments, but He never told us to pray to Mary.
Your first two examples show things that He did demonstrate in scripture, but again, no scripture tells us to pray to Mary.
To be clear, because I know text can be read combatively, I have tremendous respect for many Catholic traditions. I just do not understand this one.
I used to be Protestant, and I totally understand your objection as I struggled with praying to the saints the most, other than the papacy, before converting to the Catholic faith.
I think the first thing to address is simply to understand, “Does everything we practice in our faith have to be specifically mentioned in the Bible? Or are those practices acceptable as long as they don’t contradict Scripture?” If it’s the former, then Protestants can’t have Sunday services, Bible studies, and praise and worship events either.
Praying here simply means “to ask”, in old English literatures the word was pretty commonly used such as, “I pray to thee”. Now, words do evolve in their usage over time, and I totally get it that in the Protestant worldview, prayer is something you only do to God as prayer and worship are intertwined, but not necessarily so in the Christian history. I hope I’m steelmaning your position here.
The historical Christian view is that we pray to others in the sense that we ask for their intercession to pray to God. I wanted to make it clear that the final destination is still God, and we don’t elevate the saints to the level of God. Are there abuses? Yes in certain cultures where paganism is mixed with Catholicism, but that doesn’t mean we should abolish the practice altogether.
Can we technically pray directly to God? Yes we can, but why wouldn’t we pray for one another? Paul said in his letter to Timothy that prayers and intercessions should be made for one another. One another in the context of the Church, the mystical body of Christ. The objection may be, well they’re dead, but in Revelation 5 it shows the intercession of the saints. Dead people can’t pray, but they’re alive in Christ as God is God of the living (Matthew 22).
I’m pretty sure others including Pat can add here, but hope this helps. God bless.
First, I appreciate the good-faith answer. I am often hesitant to engage online, because I don’t want folks outside the faith to ever think I am hating on my Catholic brothers. I purposely use phrases like brother or sister in the faith to show my belief we are in the same family, just different branches.
As an aside, I admit to my “branch” splintering far too much, leading to many false theologies and beliefs.
Secondly, I am familiar with that stance. To a certain extent, I understand it. However, my thought is: if we can pray to the Father through the Son, why would I not? Also, this post says we “have” to pray to Mary.
And again, I do not see it commanded or demonstrated in scripture. Frankly, I find comfort knowing the saints pray for us, and I understand the thought of asking them to do so, but to say it is a requirement is still not something I am prepared to accept.
No problem. I totally can see how some people use their anonymity as a license to be vile online.
The splintering branch you described is unfortunately a ripple effect of the Reformation, that we can start our branch out of nowhere with whatever we believe out of the Scripture, with each generation trying to reinvent the wheel thinking the previous generation got it wrong. Now, we Catholics have our own issue too, especially with liberal parishes and bishops, but with a universal authority, we can tell which group is right or wrong.
Anyway, again this is just a difference in philosophical understanding of “necessity”. Is “necessary” in legal terms ? Is it in terms of fittingness? If we see God through the lens of Him being just a judge that oversees our faith and intellectual assent to believe and gives us salvation in return, it’s a very transactional view of salvation. God doesn’t “require” us to pray for one another in the sense that we’ll go to hell if we don’t, but we see the saints in heaven as part of one Church, and praying for one another is part of loving one another as Jesus commanded. In the book of James, the prayer of a righteous person is effective. The saints are already perfected in heaven as no one can even think of sinning in there and their wills are perfectly aligned with God’s, so why wouldn’t we ask for them to pray for us?
In short, we can pray straight to the Father through the Son. I still do that a lot even after becoming Catholic. But why does it have to be an either/or situation?
I don’t believe it has to be either/or, but the headline and the original post says “have.”
This article says you have to. That means it is necessary, which I don’t think needs to be redefined.
Even going to Paul’s letter in 2 Timothy, the word prayer is the Greek “proseuchē,” which means a prayer addressed to God, not a request made to someone else to pray for us.
If this article said it is a good thing to ask Mary, or any of the saints, to pray for us, I would say sure. May not practice it, but I could understand it as good. But it says “have to pray to,” and that’s where I respectfully disagree.
I do understand the prayers themselves are requests for intercession. I attended a Catholic school, Hail Mary is engrained in my brain, and I’ve said a rosary or too in my time. The older I get, the more I respect and even revere some of the Catholic traditions. So much so I would rather err on making that overstated then risk you or any of my Catholic brethren to think I am attacking.
Fair enough brother. Words do matter, and at this point we’re talking about semantics and not so much about fundamental disagreements.