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!
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The phrase to keep in mind is “intercessory prayer”.
The Catholic process of naming someone as a saint involves observations that they use as proof that the dead person’s soul is in heaven with God. That’s it. That’s what a saint is. It’s entirely possible that every human who has ever died is in heaven, but saints are ones the Church is *sure* are there.
An intercessory prayer is the faithful asking someone in heaven to also make their case to the big man to help you with your problems. Martyrs are good examples as it’s basically assumed that they go to heaven. It’s like if you’re a screw-up in school but you ask your teacher’s-pet buddy to speak up for you to the teacher when you get in trouble.
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