Welcome back to James Popery. I'm Joe Heschmire.

Today I want to consider two contradictory arguments often made by the very same people

against the Catholic practice of praying to the saints and Mary in heaven.

So some Protestants will regard this practice simply as pointless.

You know, why not just go directly to God?

But other people will go beyond that and say,

it's not just pointless, it's actually sinful. And they'll accuse Catholics of engaging in idolatry for asking those who have died

to pray for us. In fact, some go so far as to say that if you do this, you're guilty of the

sin of necromancy. Now, that is a pretty strong claim. And it should be backed by pretty strong

evidence.

So is it true?

Do Catholics practice necromancy?

Are they trying to consult the dead to gain secret forbidden knowledge?

Well, to answer that question, it's probably first good to go back and just say,

what do we even mean by necromancy?

In the modern age of popular fantasy video games, when we hear words like necromancy or necromancer,

it might invoke images of walking skeletons and zombies.

But in the Bible, necromancy means something a little different.

Necromancy refers to the practice of contacting the dead

to try to gain hidden knowledge or control events. And in the Bible,

it is strictly forbidden. So when these Protestants accuse Catholics of engaging in necrimancy

when they pray to the saints, they're putting the practice of saying a prayer to the saints

...