I don’t have to call on the dead who are supposed to have special powers to bend God’s ear when I ask someone alive to pray for me.
The whole premise of PTDS that they have some special power that other mere mortals don’t.
Paul in his epistles asked for prayer for himself from others. That’s not a problem. The problem is going to those whose bodies have died because somehow someone thinks they have better access to God because they are REALLY righteous.
Asking someone to pray for you is not praying to them FOR things. The semantics that Catholics use to justify praying to those considered dead in Christ, are just word games.
“The whole premise of PTDS that they have some special power that other mere mortals don’t.”
Again, this is false. Communion of Saints teaches that prayers are equally valid whether they come from the saints in heaven or folks here on Earth.
All the Communion of saints teaches is that the saints in Heaven can pray for us just as the folks here on earth do.
Ok fair enough. I was wrong in my guess about what you would say. So...
Fine. Let me just state directly: let’s assume for the sake of our “discussion” that you are right, and that there are some on earth who are just as righteous as those in heaven. ( note, here I’m not agreeing that is the case I’m only putting that issue aside for the moment for the sake of discussion )
Then I don’t see how it’s “bad” to ask those in heaven to also pray for me (in addition to asking any “righteous” here on earth to pray for me). After all, their (the righteous in heaven) prayers can “availeth” at least as much as the (few) righteous here on earth.
Right?
Or now are you going to pull the “those in heaven can’t hear your request to pray for them?” Or do you not believe they (those in heaven, like our departed loved ones for example) care about us anymore? Or maybe you’ll go with the tried (but not true) “it’s necromancy to pray to the dead”.
Or what?
I’m genuinely curious to see what objection you may now offer, if any, given the stipulation I conceded above (that “ok, there are some on earth that are as righteous as those in heaven”)