I’m not very religious, but whenever I travel to European countries there’s always a local “Patron Saint” that the locals admonish or pray to (like Saint Sebastien – Patron Saint of Mallorca, or Saint Lucy in Venice being the Patron Saint of the blind). My question is, how is this not technically polytheistic? I thought you were only supposed to pray to God? Thanks!
In: Other
Yes and no.
As someone else mentioned, the concept beind saints is that they are already in heaven and therefore in a prime position to “pray for us” as in ask God to answer our problems.
But tradition evolved to the point that people literally “make (…) a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth;” and “bow down before them”, blatantly violating the “10 commandments”.
In fact, if you ask an average catholic person (at least here in Portugal, but I bet Spain is exactly the same) they will tell you that they pray to [insert saint here], not to God. Heck even local festivities are literally in honor of [insert saind here], never in honor of God.
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