"Why pray to saints when I can go straight to Jesus? And isn't talking to the dead forbidden?" Here's the Bible's answer.
Short answer: Yes. Catholics don't worship saints or go around Jesus. We ask them to pray for us, as we ask fellow Christians on earth (James 5:16). Scripture shows that the saints in heaven are alive in God (Luke 20:38) and that heaven offers "the prayers of the holy ones" before God's throne (Revelation 5:8).
Key verses on praying to saints
- "he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." (Luke 20:38)
- "gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones." (Revelation 5:8)
- "we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1)
- "The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful." (James 5:16)
- "supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone" (1 Timothy 2:1)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What Catholics Actually Teach
In older English, "pray" simply meant "ask." To "pray to" a saint is to ask for his or her prayers. We worship God alone.
The Church teaches that the saints in heaven "do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus" (CCC 956). They "contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth." And so: "We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world" (CCC 2683). This is what the Creed calls the communion of saints: pilgrims on earth, "the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church" (CCC 962).
What Catholics do not teach:
- That saints are worshiped. They are honored. God alone is worshiped.
- That saints have power of their own. They intercede "through the one mediator," Christ (CCC 956).
- That you can't pray to God directly. You should. The saints pray with you, not instead of you.
- That it's fine to summon the dead. The Church rejects "conjuring up the dead" and "recourse to mediums" (CCC 2116).
The Biblical Case
1. Asking others to pray for us is biblical
St. Paul writes: "First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone... This is good and pleasing to God our savior" (1 Timothy 2:1–3). St. James adds, "pray for one another... The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful" (James 5:16). The only question is whether death ends that.
2. The saints are not dead. They are alive in God
Jesus answered the Sadducees: "He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled" (Mark 12:27). St. Luke adds: "for to him all are alive" (Luke 20:38). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive to God. Death doesn't cut them off from Christ's body, where "if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy" (1 Corinthians 12:26).
3. Those who have left this world know and care about earth
At the Transfiguration, "two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem" (Luke 9:30–31). Moses and Elijah knew what was about to happen on earth. The martyrs under the heavenly altar cry out, "How long will it be, holy and true master, before you sit in judgment and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?" (Revelation 6:9–10). They know their blood has not yet been avenged "on the inhabitants of the earth."
Jesus says the same of heaven's joy: "there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance" (Luke 15:7). Heaven cannot rejoice over a repentance it knows nothing about.
4. Heaven presents our prayers to God
"Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones." (Revelation 5:8)
Later, an angel offers incense "along with the prayers of all the holy ones," and "the smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel" (Revelation 8:3–4). Interpreters debate who the twenty-four elders are. Either way, those in heaven offer the prayers of believers on earth to God. That is intercession.
5. The righteous in heaven are perfected intercessors
St. James's proof that a righteous person's prayer is powerful is Elijah, "a human being like us" (James 5:17). Who is more righteous than "the spirits of the just made perfect" (Hebrews 12:23)? Hebrews says we are "surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1), the faithful of chapter 11. In 2 Maccabees, Judas sees the long-dead prophet Jeremiah, who "fervently prays for the people and the holy city" (2 Maccabees 15:14). Protestants don't accept 2 Maccabees as Scripture. But it shows that Jews before Christ believed the righteous dead pray for the living (see Why Catholic Bibles Have 7 More Books).
The prophets assume the same thing. God tells Jeremiah: "Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, my heart would not turn toward this people" (Jeremiah 15:1). Moses and Samuel were long dead. God names them as intercessors who could stand before Him.
Objections Answered
(a) "There is one mediator between God and man: Jesus."
At its strongest: "There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human" (1 Timothy 2:5). Jesus is "the mediator of a new covenant" (Hebrews 12:24). Saintly go-betweens insult His unique work.
Answer: Read four verses earlier. The same passage that names one mediator commands Christians to offer prayers "for everyone" and calls it "good and pleasing to God" (1 Timothy 2:1–3). St. Paul saw no conflict. Neither does the Church: the saints intercede "through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus" (CCC 956). Asking Mary to pray for you no more replaces Jesus than asking your pastor does.
(b) "Talking to the dead is necromancy. God forbids it."
At its strongest: God condemns anyone who "casts spells, consults ghosts and spirits, or seeks oracles from the dead" and calls it "an abomination to the LORD" (Deuteronomy 18:11–12). When Saul asked the medium of Endor, "Conjure up Samuel for me," it showed how far he had fallen (1 Samuel 28:7–11). Praying to saints looks like the same thing.
Answer: Look at what is forbidden: divination, mediums, "oracles from the dead." Necromancy tries to summon the dead for hidden knowledge or power apart from God. Saul wanted a medium "through whom I can seek counsel." Catholics use no medium, summon no one, and seek no oracles; the Church condemns all of that (CCC 2116). Asking a saint to pray to God is the opposite. And Jesus Himself spoke with Moses and Elijah (Luke 9:30). The Lord of the Law did not break the Law.
(c) "The dead know nothing."
At its strongest: "the dead no longer know anything" and "Never again will they have part in anything that is done under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 9:5–6). There is "no knowledge" in Sheol (Ecclesiastes 9:10). If the dead are unaware of earth, the saints cannot hear us.
Answer: Ecclesiastes speaks of life "under the sun" and of Sheol, the realm of the dead before Christ opened heaven. It describes what the dead can no longer do in this world. Read as a denial of life with God, it would contradict Jesus, who says that to God "all are alive" (Luke 20:38), and St. Paul, who calls death "gain" and longs to "depart this life and be with Christ, [for] that is far better" (Philippians 1:21, 23). St. Paul did not long for unconsciousness. And the martyrs in Revelation speak, remember, and ask about events on earth (6:9–10).
(d) "There is no example in Scripture of anyone praying to a saint."
At its strongest: Scripture is full of prayer, and every prayer it commands is addressed to God. No apostle tells believers to ask Abraham, Moses or St. Stephen for help. If the practice were apostolic, why is it absent from the New Testament?
Answer: It is true that no New Testament passage narrates a believer asking a departed saint for prayer. But look at what Scripture does establish. Christians ask each other for prayer (James 5:16). The saints in heaven are alive (Luke 20:38), perfected (Hebrews 12:23), aware of earth (Luke 15:7; Revelation 6:10), and actively offering prayers before God (Revelation 5:8; 8:3–4). And Hebrews says believers on earth "have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," including "the spirits of the just made perfect" (Hebrews 12:22–23). We are one assembly with them. Nothing in Scripture limits intercession to Christians still on earth, and asking a saint to pray is asking a member of Christ's body who stands closer to God than you do. The objection assumes that whatever Scripture does not narrate it forbids, a rule Scripture never gives (see Is Sola Scriptura in the Bible?).
The Early Church Agrees
The early Christians read these verses the Catholic way.
- Origen (Against Celsus 8.36, c. AD 248), on the angels, citing Matthew 18:10: the believer's angel "offers up his prayers through the one High Priest to the God of all, and also joins his own prayers with those of the man who is committed to his keeping."
- St. Cyprian of Carthage (Epistle 56.5, to Pope St. Cornelius in exile, c. AD 253): "Let us on both sides always pray for one another... that if any one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence the first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father's mercy" (Epistle 56.5).
- Mystagogical Catechesis 5 (Jerusalem, c. AD 350; traditionally attributed to St. Cyril of Jerusalem, though some scholars assign it to his successor John), describing the Eucharistic prayer: "Then we commemorate also those who have fallen asleep before us, first Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that at their prayers and intercessions God would receive our petition" (Catechetical Lecture 23.9). This is the liturgy itself asking for the saints' intercession.
- St. Augustine of Hippo (Against Faustus, c. AD 400): "It is true that Christians pay religious honor to the memory of the martyrs, both to excite us to imitate them and to obtain a share in their merits, and the assistance of their prayers" (20.21). Those merits are themselves gifts of Christ, since the saints intercede "through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus" (CCC 956).
- St. Jerome (Against Vigilantius, AD 406), answering a critic who said "that so long as we are alive we can pray for one another" but not after death: "If Apostles and martyrs while still in the body can pray for others, when they ought still to be anxious for themselves, how much more must they do so when once they have won their crowns, overcome, and triumphed?" (6).
The earliest writings speak more of the saints' prayers for us than of requests to them. But by the fourth century the Church's own liturgy asked for their intercession, and when Vigilantius objected, St. Jerome answered him as the innovator.
Conclusion
Praying to saints isn't a detour around Jesus. It's the family of God refusing to let death break it apart. God "is not God of the dead, but of the living," and the living in heaven still love us.
If you're Protestant, you already ask friends to pray for you. We invite you to ask the friends of God closest to Him. Start with Revelation 5:8 and Hebrews 12:1.
Come home. The communion of saints, the one family of God in heaven and on earth, is lived and prayed every day in the Catholic Church. Christ did not found many churches. He founded one, on St. Peter and the apostles (Matthew 16:18), and that Church is the Catholic Church. "It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816). If you are a baptized Christian, you already share "a certain, although imperfect, communion" with her (CCC 838). Every truth you already hold is a call to the rest of the way. Christ is calling you into the Catholic Church.
Your next step: Come to Mass this Sunday at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. Everyone is welcome; if you're not yet Catholic, pray with us but don't receive Communion yet. When you're ready to become Catholic, call the parish office and ask about OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They will walk you through every step. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Is it wrong to pray directly to Jesus? Not at all. Catholics pray directly to God every day. Asking the saints to pray is an addition, never a replacement.
Do Catholics worship Mary and the saints? No. Worship belongs to God alone. As St. Augustine put it, divine worship "we give only to God" (Against Faustus 20.21).
How can saints hear millions of prayers? Scripture doesn't explain how. But it shows that those who have left this world can be aware of events on earth. Moses and Elijah, centuries after leaving it, spoke with Jesus "of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem" (Luke 9:30–31). The martyrs under the heavenly altar ask how long until their blood is avenged "on the inhabitants of the earth" (Revelation 6:9–10). And the elders in heaven hold the prayers of "the holy ones" (Revelation 5:8). Whatever they know, God gives them. That is not omniscience, which belongs to God alone.
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Deuteronomy 18:10–12; 1 Samuel 28:7–11; 2 Maccabees 15:12–14; Ecclesiastes 9:5–6, 10; Jeremiah 15:1; Matthew 16:18; Mark 12:26–27; Luke 9:28–32; Luke 15:7; Luke 20:37–38; 1 Corinthians 12:26–27; Philippians 1:21, 23; 1 Timothy 2:1–5; Hebrews 12:1, 22–24; James 5:16–18; Revelation 5:8; Revelation 6:9–10; Revelation 8:3–4.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 816, 838; 956, 962; 2116; 2683.
Church Fathers (newadvent.org): Origen, Against Celsus 8.36 (ANF vol. 4); Cyprian, Epistle 56.5 (ANF vol. 5); Cyril of Jerusalem (attrib.), Catechetical Lecture 23 (Mystagogical Catechesis 5).9 (NPNF2 vol. 7); Augustine, Contra Faustum (Against Faustus) 20.21 (NPNF1 vol. 4, trans. R. Stothert); Jerome, Against Vigilantius 6 (NPNF2 vol. 6).