DEBATE: Is it WRONG to pray to the Saints in Heaven? Matt Fradd Vs Cameron Bertuzzi

I debate with Protestant, Cameron Bertuzzi, whether or not praying to the saints in heaven is Biblical.

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[paulcjakubik]

How favoured am I to be born into the Catholic Faith; how foolish am I that I abandoned the Faith; how Merciful is Almighty God that He forgave this prodigal son and called me back to His embrace.

[mr.caleblynn]

I was raised a Pentecostal, received my primary education from the Church of Christ, became a member of a Christian church, and received Methodist Holiness higher education. I was thoroughly Protestant in every form of Christian thinking. As a teenager I began dealing with pornography addiction. One night, when I was 20, I felt an extraordinary temptation to cave in to my addiction. I prayed harder than I had ever prayed and felt the Holy Spirit on me. Even still, I felt a supernatural temptation. As I was praying in the spirit I was led to pray “Lord Jesus have mercy” over and over again. After I had prayed this a number of times, I was led to pray “Mary pray for me. Michael send angels.” As soon as these words left my mouth, the temptation ended. Christ says that demons can not be cast out in the name of demons and that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Because of this, I am confident that what happened came from God. This is the only thing that could’ve convinced me that prayer to the saints was truly a desire God has for us. Please know God wants to draw you nearer to you through the communion of the saints.

[reformatorpoloniae]

It is not a debate, we have two men here who actually agree and defend their common position.

[clemenaparente]

This miracle is a testimony till the day I die. I am an out of school youth for several years and everyone despised me. There is a program for out of school youth in the Philippines but i didn’t review and no hope for passing. I decided to have a novena to St. Jude Thadeus and I translated it Tagalo(local language) then prayed it for nine consecutive days. The exam came, the after 3 months result came out. Fast forward I have a degree in Philosophy now and still sipping with Aquinas. God bless!

[wreloise]

Being non-Catholic….I was inspired to begin the novena…”Little Flower”
🙏🏾❤️🙏🏾
“Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!””
‭‭Mark‬ ‭9:24‬ ‭

[augustvonmacksen]

Matt, I appreciate your way of discussing and not participating in argument. You easily could but give much grace to the oppositional viewpoint. I need to do this more often when I’m discussion with Protestants.

[TheJoshC]

"I would want to really look at the scriptures and determine if that's what the Bible actually teaches". Cameron, thousands of denominations have sprung up because of exactly that. People wanting to interpret scripture for themselves.

[CanisDei]

Thanks, Matt and Cameron. I’ve personally experienced more than two miracles happened to me in my life after praying to Saints. One was St. Antony who helped me find my lost property. And next was St. Francis who miraculously cured numerous some sort of skin tags that was over my body. (In diocese of Kottar, Tamil Nadu, India). Our Ancestors and we here are Catholics because of St. Xavier and St. Thomas who visited here long back and both died here in India, as you may know.

[meatofpeach]

BTW, the saints in heaven are more alive than we are.

[andrewwhite]

As a Protestant who is discerning Catholicism the argument for the intercession of the saints I think is pretty solid. What concerns me is when I hear Catholics pray for Saints (not God) to do things for them (e.g. “Pray to St Catherine that she will give you courage”). What power does a saint have to great supernatural gifts in and of themselves? I would think none. I want to think this is just a fringe abuse but I hear it so commonly and from well respected Catholic groups that it’s hard for me to believe that. I recently started to listen to the “Catholic Saints” podcast (which has great information and is put out by the Augustine Institute, who also runs “Formed”) and they pretty regularly say things like this at the end of a podcast. Perhaps they mean, “pray to St Catherine that she would intercede on your behalf and ask Christ to give you courage” but if that’s what they mean to say then that’s what Catholics should say. It would go a long way to helping would be Catholic Protestants like me. As it is it does appear that many Catholics perceive that the saints, Mary or otherwise, hold within them supernatural powers. This is a sticking point for me currently and would love to hear the Catholic perspective but whenever I try to look this up online, all I ever get is “ Catholics pray for the intercession of saints”.

[timothygriffith]

Thanks for the video. I'm in the process of converting to Catholicism. Going thru catechesis currently. I watched this video as research into one of the many new-to-me doctrines that my Protestant family/friends have argued against. Though the video wasn't much of a debate, I think both sides were equally represented. There were even more arguments against prayers to Mary and the saints than my family/friends have raised haha. Props to Matt for the charitable argument style. Much appreciated, and very educational for me. Thank you.

[joechriste]

Soul sleep would just be refuted by the fact that Moses and Elijah were there at Jesus’ transfiguration.

[PaulDaLouis]

Loving it chaps. I was raised in the Dutch Reformed church, but have systematically journeyed into the post reformation church world. I now consider myself Anglican, with a big interest in the 'Oxford movement'. I can say for the first time in my life, I feel a power of peace come over me during holy communion, which btw I've never felt before. I'm also regularly praying the rosary, BUT I have not scratched the surface of 'communion of the saints'. So this is an awesome chat.

[dmcc]

This is a great conversation. We need more of these talks to bring us together as different members of the body of Christ, opposed to what makes us different. Cheers Matt!

[Gentry.H.P.]

I love this, you two travailing through these topics is very enjoyable and edifying. It's the dialectical method done at its best.
Also, Matt where did you get those glasses?!

[manny]

...and now Cameron is Catholic...welcome home, brother

[anthonywhitney]

I'll be honest here, I'm disappointed that Cameron seems to have only done minimal research as to why Protestantism rejects praying to the 'Saints'.

[iqgustavo]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:

00:00 🎙️ Matt Fradd and Cameron Bertuzzi engaged in a debate about praying to saints in heaven.
03:51 📖 Matt's modest goal was not to convince Protestants to pray to saints but to show that the practice is reasonable, biblical, and historical.
08:04 🌟 Saints in heaven are conscious, aware of events on Earth, and can intercede for us.
10:52 📖 The Bible provides examples of communion with saints in heaven, such as Jesus communing with Moses and Elijah.
16:48 🙏 Abusing devotion to saints doesn't negate its proper use, just as devotion to the Bible can have its pitfalls.
21:34 📖 The speaker approaches topics like the Eucharist and purgatory with an open mind, not predetermined by a particular view.
22:03 📜 The speaker plans to address common objections against prayers to the saints, focusing on the argument related to Deuteronomy 18:10-12.
23:40 📚 The passage in Deuteronomy 18:10-12 primarily pertains to discerning God's will through prophets, not related to asking saints for intercession.
29:34 🙏 The common Protestant objection that there's only one mediator, Jesus, doesn't preclude asking friends and family to pray for you.
34:36 🙌 Requesting the saints' intercession is not equivalent to worshiping them, as it doesn't attribute divinity to them.
36:36 📖 The absence of a direct biblical instruction doesn't necessarily mean that praying to saints is wrong; the Bible serves other purposes.
38:42 📜 Sola Scriptura doesn't require explicit biblical instructions for every practice; implicit arguments and early Church traditions support prayers to the saints.
42:24 🙏 The Catholic Church argues that the absence of biblical prohibition means praying to saints is not wrong.
44:11 🧐 Catholics believe the early Church's interpretation of Scripture holds more weight than interpretations from later periods.
56:27 🙌 Catholics believe the prayers of saints in heaven are more efficacious due to their righteousness and closeness to God.
01:00:12 🤔 Questions about how the saints hear and intercede in response to millions of prayers are speculative, and the answer might be in the mystery.
01:02:32 🌼 An experience involving Bishop Barron saying "little flower" before a technical issue resolution has piqued interest in exploring prayers to saints, like Saint Therese of Lisieux.
01:03:16 💬 A suggestion is made to create a video discussing why or why not to pray the Hail Mary prayer, diving deeper into the topic of praying to saints in the Catholic tradition.
01:03:30 🙏 Acknowledging Mary as the mother of God and praying to saints is acceptable within the Catholic tradition, and a Hail Mary prayer is suggested as a starting point for those curious about it.
01:04:11 🤝 The debate didn't have the anticipated fireworks, but it was a valuable discussion aimed at exploring the topic and addressing objections to reach a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

[FrWitt]

This was great. I would love a discussion on annihilationism. I've never really heard an argument for it that was well articulated.

[deedee]

I understand Why many Protestants think we worship the saints and see them as gods. My parents come from a country full of natural religiosity. Ppl will not even go to mass but will kneel outside the church with their huge saint statues. It is so bad that ppl have made up saints that the church has not canonized and actually condemns. Like, the saint of the dead. “ Santa muerte.” Thanks to Vatican 2 and the new evangelization that is going on in their country these ideas and customs are slowly dying. And, while many are leaving the church the ones that are staying are part of new charisma’s in the church that actually evangelize correctly. My mom says that she remembers the priests going to the villages and would speak in Latin only. The ppl didn’t understand at all and this is why natural religiosity is so ingrained in the Latin American culture. Thank God for giving us Vatican 2 these countries have really benefited❤️