Talking with Dead People
Roman Catholics talk to: i.e., communicate with,-- deceased persons noted
for their sanctity in this life. Is this Biblical?
The Lord forbade communicating with the dead to His people: "There
shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass
through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or
one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one
who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because
of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you." (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).
The Catholic Church agrees: "There is a sect called spiritism, whose members try to call back
the souls of their departed friends by superstitious practices; these deluded people say they hold
communication with the dead. But such communication, whether it really be with the dead or with evil
spirits, is forbidden to Catholics." (Religion, Doctrine and Practice, Francis B. Cassilly, S.J., p. 362).
But wait a minute -- what is prayer but "communication"? Entreating
deceased friends and relations for assistance was common pagan practice:
"For some time a woman known as Dedi, the wife of a priest living
in the region of Memphis about the 20th century BC, had been worrying over
the prolonged illness of her serving maid, Imiu. She could not run her
household properly without assistance, and the apparent indifference of
her husband, Intef, only sharpened her anxiety..When she could no longer
tolerate the situation, Dedi sat down and wrote a letter to her negligent
husband, taking him to task for his insensitivity to her suffering. 'Why
do you want your threshold to be made desolate?' Dedi asked. 'If there's
no help from you, your house will be destroyed; don't you know that it
is this serving maid who maintans your house among men?'...Although Dedi
had accused him of being insensitive to her concerns, Intef had a fairly
good reason for keeping silent: He had died some time earlier. In Dedi's
view, a common one, death did not necessarily preclude her husband from
helping out around the house. Indeed, in this particular instance, Intef
would be of more use to Dedi in the Realm of the Dead....Only by the intervention
of her dead husband could Dedi hope to have the serving woman restored
to health. 'Can you not fight for her day and night?' Dedi asked. 'Fight
for her! Watch over her! Save her from all those doing her harm! Then your
house and your children shall be maintained....Fight for her,' she urged.
'Now!' Having finished her letter, Dedi filled the bowl with food and left
it in Intef's tomb." (What Life was Like on the Banks of the Nile, pp. 137-138).
By contrast, in the Bible, prayer is to God alone: "O You who hear
prayer, to You all flesh will come." (Psalm 65:2). Some Roman
Catholics report establishing two-way communication with the dead. Joan
of Arc claimed to be in communication with Saints Catherine and Margaret,
deceased at the time. The Biblical grounds for criminalizing calling up
the dead does not appear to be the futility of the practice, because it
is not in all cases impossible: "So Saul disguised himself and put
on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him; and they came to the
woman by night. And he said, 'Please conduct a séance for me, and
bring up for me the one I shall name to you.'...Then the woman said, 'Whom
shall I bring up for you?' And he said, 'Bring up Samuel for me.' When
the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice.'" (1 Samuel
28:7-12). Many other things forbidden in the law of Moses are also
possible, such as murder and adultery. But God said not to do it!
"Worshipping the Dead"
Not only do Roman Catholics communicate with deceased persons noted for
their sanctity in this life, they also 'venerate' them, kneeling before
images of these departed saints. This practice was legalized by the council,
accepted as ecumenical by Roman Catholic, called Second Nicaea.
- "For I have heard in turn that others, who are out of their minds
on the subject of this holy Ever-virgin, have done their best and are doing
their best, in the grip both of madness and of folly, to substitute her
for God...The words, 'Some shall depart from sound doctrine, giving heed
to fables and doctrines of devils,' apply to these people as well. For
as the scriptures say, they will be 'worshipping the dead' as the dead
were given divine honors in Israel...For in Shechem, that is, the present
day Neapolis, the inhabitants offer sacrifices in the name of Core, because
of Jephthah's daughter, if you please, who was offered to God as a sacrifice.
And for those who have been taken in by it, this has become the misfortunate
of idolatry and the worship of vain things."
- (Ephipanius, Panarion, Section VII, 58 [78], 23.2-23.6).
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Do modern Catholics fall under Epiphanius' condemnation? They have set
up a continuum of degrees of worship, with the highest falling to God alone,
the lesser forms to created beings: "Let us understand that there
are different degrees of worship." (John of Damascus, On Holy Images).
But the Bible does not describe a continuum, rather an on/off switch: on
for God, off for the creature.
Relics
In the law of Moses, death defiles; God's people sought to avoid pollution
by avoiding human remains. The Lord's words call this to mind: "Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed
tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead
men’s bones and all uncleanness." (Matthew 23:27). But nowadays the
Roman Catholic Church cannot stop collecting dead men's bones.
- "What can you say as to this, that it is attested by the writings
of authors, that many of these temples which have been raised with golden
domes and lofty roofs cover bones and ashes, and are sepulchers of the
dead? Is it not plain and manifest, either that you worship dead men for
immortal gods, or that an inexpiable affront is cast upon the deities,
whose shrines and temples have been built over the tombs of the dead?"
- (Arnobius, Case Against the Pagans, Book 6, Chapter 6).
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The old law has been nailed to the cross. It is less than obvious, however,
why one would wish to introduce practices not known to the Bible, suspiciously
similar to the customs of the nations, and against which Moses legislated.
Saints that Ain't
Among the departed saints venerated in the past by Roman Catholics has
been numbered...Gautama Buddha. Having your own religion is no bar to getting
listed on the Roman Catholic calender:
Barlaam and Josaphat found their way into the Roman Martyrology (27 November), and into the Greek
calendar (26 August)...The story is a Christianized version of one of the legends of Buddha, as even the name Josaphat would
seem to show. This is said to be a corruption of the original Joasaph, which is again corrupted from the middle
Persian Budasif (Budsaif=Bodhisattva)." (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907, Article 'Barlaam and Josaphat.')
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