Do Catholics Worship Saints?

Father, I know that the idea and teaching is to not worship saints. But what i and others have seen is that some people do worship saints. This may be due to poor instruction, but it happens and i know you have seen this. The same thing is true about Mary. But people now and in the past have treated Mary as if she is on the same level as Jesus. I have even seen priest end a prayer by saying, in the name of Jesus and Mary. Now all this is wrong, and not what Rome teaches, but it happens and happens a lot. And Rome seems to give these people and priest a free pass and makes excuses for them.
You can try and seperste the levels of worship and respect of Mary and the saints all you like. But in reality, many humans do not have the ability to make that distinction. It becomes like scambmed eggs.
Many religions like the Jews and Islam and to an extent many of the Orthodox know this and stay far away from it .

Do you think that the early Reformers dumped images simply because they hated art? No not on your life. What they saw and even were guilty of in earlier times practice that ended up being something like worship. And they wanted to insure they were never guilty of this practice.

You can give all the excuses and same old expectations all you want. But deep inside, you know human nature, and you know many Catholics do and pray things that could be taken as worship. And you also know that Paul said to not be a stumbling block to others. And this is one huge stumbling block in the church as a whole, and has been for a a very long time.

This is a thoughtful response to an important question. Still, the host of saints seems perilously close to a system of demigods.

Shirk

Fr Mike has a wonderful way to justify idolatry...

Tempting...way to stretch that we can pray for one another to the living praying to the dead!
You only brought up the point that while we are alive we should pray for one another. There is nothing in the scripture that said anything about the living pray to the death.
Actually, Jesus told us to leave the dead alone!

I got stomach ache and they say I should pray for intercession of St. Timothy.What would happen if I pray for intercession of St Cunigunde the Holy Roman Empress instead,would it make my prayer less acceptable?

Catholics bow down to Pagan gods...

I wonder how many little boys he touched

Timothy 2:5

Thank you so much for explaining this so clearly and in such lovely way. I love making various rosaries and chaplets, and your narrative is a great inspiration.

Thank you 🕊

God tells us in his word their is a gulf fixed between them they
Cannot hear or answe you
The only meditor between God and man is Jesus Christ.

All Gods Saints are alive. Saint simply means sanctified unto one God Jesus Christ. Once they die their souls go back to Jesus. They reside in the heavens with Jesus and God the father now!

Tell me that praying to a saint is NOT a form of worship? Sorry Mike, you're playing with words and your apologetic doesn't hold water.

I absolutely love some saints and do not worship them.
Saint Francis and saint Anthony have been part of my life since before I had my big conversion.
Then St Theresa the Little Flower and Saint Raphael.
i think we need a strange telephone around our necks so we can say ring ring then make the sign of the cross and ask to speak to our saints, angels and Our Lady.
I Always thank God The Father first then them for their many favors.
Whereas we just talk to Father God and Jesus anytime we want .

Amen...thank you. God bless you Father, may the heavenly father guide and protect you always. Glory be the kingdom of God, the son and the holy spirit 🙏 😊

Thank you 🙏

Serious question: so I can pray to any dead Christian in heaven? Like a family member, friend or famous Christian? Are they not all saints?

AMEN🙏🏽🤲🏾❤️

That picture of a statue is the perfect microcosm for what the priorities are. Hindus make the same arguments as you do to justify their idolatry. Youre preaching Hinduism, Mike.

Catholics may not worship saints, but you sure do worship statues. You treat them with more respect than you do your neighbor. Abhorrent.

God tells us to talk and pray together with LIVING people. However talking to the dead is prohibited and never once demonstrated or asked of us. Not to mention APPEARANCES of dead saints which is foundational in the catholic church here in Mexico.

Obrigado pelas legendas em Português ❤️

We need to teach people about opening up their heart portal and consciousness so they can get out of purgatory

A father listen I come in peace and everyone is forgiven, let bygones be bygones and this is the now new world and we're going to get that third Temple put up man very change world people should listen to us cuz we the prophets and more but we have a higher above and we all answer to the same all mighty creator shalom, be it so,peace be upon because I got every religion under the Sun under my belt, and we all have to put our differences to the side you'll get along like Earth Angels 888 777

Thank you Fr. Schmitz, as you know this is an often repeated lie & all too many Catholics are underprepared for ἀπολογία.
May Our Lord bless you in your labor for His Kingdom.
Glory to Jesus Christ our King!!!

So as Catholics you just honor Saints and honorX2 to Marry the mother of Jesus but not worship or pray to them is that correct? Did not see the answer in the video, apologize if I missed it.

This is crazy the snake on the stick was later burned because what did we do in kings we began to worship it and no praying to Paul and asking someone to pray is not the same thing you are diminishing Jesus holiness and sacrifice

Some of them do idolize saints and that is the truth. No, I am not bashing Catholics, there are many Protestants who have idols in their lives. There were some Catholics who did idolize Saint Mary, and then the blessed mother appeared to them and told them, "Worship my son, not me."

What I hear is Catholics don’t preach the gospel but works.

Jesus was constantly, and rightly obviously, railing against the Jewish leadership for placing tradition above scripture. Mark 7:6-9 details this very well but in those scriptures I see the Catholic church as well. You give lip service to the scriptures but it's really tradition that drives your practices.

Also, how is kneeling before the statues honouring the people and not taking honouring to another level? I mean, it's one thing for me to honour my parents whom I have great respect and admiration for in my heart or by remembering their teachings and their inspirational testimonies, and a whole different thing for me to kneel before them and pray to them.

And also you are confusing co-workers with mediators. How is it the same thing for us to pray to god through the saints and for us to pray to god through jesus? He has disciples on earth to preach and guide others towards christ however how is this granting us the same authority to connect others to god when we are in heaven?

Where particularly in revelations does it reveal that the saints are praying

The first of all they have changed the 10 commandments... 2 nd commandment stating thou shall not make any graven image has been taken out..4th commandment of sabbath is changed to lord's day.. final comandment is broken to two different commandments... Any image with an intention of worship is abomination unto God.. the ark of the covenant remained in the most holy place and nobody had the access to see it... The symbols have purpose and meaning for it... Secondly, he mentioned of praying to saints... Nobody has gone to heaven except jesus... If the people who die go to heaven, we need to no resurrection and also second coming of jesus christ.. Jesus is our high priest and we pray to him alone and jesus alone is our doin intercession on our behalf... Not the saints..Jesus alone is living.. we do not pray to the dead.. for dead no nothing... In christ we are all saints...

I’m a Protestant moving towards the Catholic faith and this channel has been integral in stretching my mind / making me think and dig into His Holy Word. Love it.

Thank you for breaking this out in examples. As a cradle catholic its been a difficult thing to explain.

Statute is saints are not just reminders of god goodness. As someone who was raised catholic a lot of prayers to saints are not just "reminders".

We are all saints according to the Bible. Saints are Christians

I'm not going to argue with you sir I was once a Catholic story too long to put here but I'm going to leave you with a little parable... There was a couple who went down to the beach .What a beautiful day, blue skies ,sunshine ,warm waters .The water was so blue.Jjust as they were going in a lifeguard was coming towards them and said, I'm sorry but you can't go swimming today! The couple looked kind of puzzled as to why? It's a beautiful day! The Lifeguard said yes what you said is true, it's beautiful but it's the undertow that kills you so I advise you to stay out of the water So you see sir it's not always what you think you see or what even you try to explain to people the undertow just ask the pope he knows what I'm talking about...By the way I called you sir because God says in the Bible to call no man Father but God who is in heaven❤

There is no apostle that ever prayed to Mary or ever told us to pray to her. Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father, there is no other way. Mary was never elected to intercede on our behalf, Christ is!

It is idolatry to worship the saints!

liar

Reading comments that disagree with what Fr is saying just shows that people choose ignorance. What Fr said makes complete sense logically and scripturally and yet there’s still people that choose to ignore the explanation. At this point it’s willful ignorance.

The Bible clearly prohibits necromancy which is communicating to the dead deuteronomy 18. It’s just simple praying to those who are the departed even the departed righteous who are alive should not be communicated to 2 Sam 28 is not a good example it is a mistake of a fallen Saul. Matthew 17 Jesus communicated with Moses and Elijah but they did not communicate with the disciples on the holy mountain. Catholicism still needs her reformation she rejected in the 16th century

Liar.....only traditions n man made religion.....

Imagine praying to the paint-ING, asking for it to paint yourself in the same way, when you could just ask the Paint-ER. The Paint-ING has no power to paint you, the Paint-ER does.