Wait, the Catholic Church says they only declare who is a saint. Does that verse mean that your prayers are not heard unless they go through one of your so called saints?
Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Was the Holy Spirit through Paul not telling the truth?
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Absolutely not. Whoever taught you that, CynicalBear, was flat-out lying to you. It is a complete fiction.
Read this carefully: Any form of prayer you Protestants can use, Catholics also can (and do) use. In addition to that, we can ask others to pray for us (both other living Christians, and those who have passed on).
God does not need any "intecessory" prayers to act, or any "middlemen" or "middlewomen". However, God often chooses (in His Sovereign Holy Will) to use human beings as "middlemen/middlewomen".
For example, if God wanted to, He could easily tell each of us everything that is contained in, say, the Bible Book of "Luke", but He chose instead to use a middleman (Luke) to write that Gospel, and pass on His information to each one of us who access that Gospel.
(God didn't need to do that, but He chose to do that, and actually takes great delight in using humble human servants to do things for Him, even though He does not need them to do those things at all.)
It is an absolutely wonderful thing to pray for other humans in need, and it does not stop being a wonderful thing for people who made it to heaven to keep on praying for other human beings in need.
no they don't....anyone can become a saint, the Catholic church merely states that for a few (named saints)..there is ample evidence to declare that they are in Heaven and therefore saints.....all who are in Heaven are Saints.