If you say so...
I do not need to argue this point with you as it does not make any difference to me...for I am not asking dead people to pray for me and therefore if it is necromancy, it is no skin off my back, and if it is not, neither does it affect me in any way. So I have no reason for wanting to believe that what you are doing is necromancy. I hope for your sake that it isn't, I really do...but for my own life, I do not think it would be wise for me to take chances on something that is doubtful. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin, Romans 14:23.
The point is that they have gone on to the next life...their bodies are dead in the grave and their spirits are separated from their bodies.
What if there is someone that you think was a saint but they really went to hell? You would then indeed be communicating with someone in hell...and they are not really dead either since they are conscious of their suffering in the pit.
What does dead even really mean, if not the fact that they are not with us any more?
Communicating with those who have gone to the other side is necromancy whether they went to heaven or hell...for it must be accomplished by occultic means; contacting people who have already died and gone on into the next life is necromancy.
Prayers to the dead was explained in my reply to you in
post #144. IT IS NOT NECROMANCY. Nobody is saying yo must follow this (or any) Catholic distinctives, but if you are going to challenge or question them, then TRY to understand our (amateurish) answers.
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Often there is confusion over Catholics’ use of the phrase, “praying to saints.” Protestants typically think that we can’t communicate to anyone who is not alive on this earth, and that to do so is tantamount to “praying” to them, and that this is wrong, because [so they claim] one can only pray to God.
They’re wrong. We can ask them to
pray for us (which is what Catholics who know anything about their faith mean by “praying to saints”), and that is not prayer,
if by prayer we mean (as Protestants believe)
only that they
grant our requests under their own power.
No they don’t. They make powerful requests to God, Who then decides whether to grant our requests or not. They are intercessors to God, not the granters of the prayers.
That said, Catholics often use the phrase “pray[ing] to saints”: meaning
“asking them to intercede.” Catholics understand the shorthand "pray to". Non-Catholics often don't get it.
St. Thomas Aquinas makes a very useful clarification:
Prayer is offered to a person in two ways: first, as to be fulfilled by him, secondly, as to be obtained through him.
On the first way we offer prayer to God alone, since all our prayers ought to be directed to the acquisition of grace and glory, which God alone gives, according to Psalm 83:12, “The Lord will give grace and glory.” But in the second way we pray to the saints, whether angels or men, not that God may through them know our petitions, but that our prayers may be effective through their prayers and merits.” (
Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part,
Question 83:4: “Should We Pray to God Alone?”)
If you decide St. Thomas Aquinas is teaching necromancy, I give up.
