Jan 7 Wed
Do Catholics worship the saints?
We adore the divine Person of Jesus and His human nature, because He is the Son of God. We venerate the martyrs and saints with love and fellowship.
We, the Christian community, assemble to celebrate the memory of the martyrs with ritual solemnity because we seek inspiration to follow their example, share in their merits, and be aided by their prayers. Yet we erect no altars to any of the martyrs, even in the burial chapels where they rest.
No bishop or priest, when celebrating at an altar where these holy bodies lie, has ever said, “Peter, we make this offering to you,” or “Paul, to you,” or “Cyprian, to you.” No, what is offered is always offered to God, who crowned the martyrs. We offer in the chapels where the bodies of those He crowned rest, so that the memories associated with those places will stir our emotions and encourage us to greater love for both the martyrs we can imitate and God, whose grace enables us to do so.
Thus, we venerate the martyrs with the same love and fellowship that we extend to the holy men of God still among us. We sense that the hearts of these latter are just as ready to suffer death for the sake of the Gospel, yet we feel more devotion toward those who have already emerged victorious from the struggle. We honor the country’s heroes, and those who are fighting on the battlefield of this life, but we honor with greater confidence those who have already achieved the victor’s crown and live in heaven.
However, the veneration strictly called “worship,” or latria, which is the special homage belonging only to the divinity, is something we give—and teach others to give—to God alone. The offering of a sacrifice belongs to worship in this sense (that is why those who sacrifice to idols are called idol-worshippers). We neither make nor instruct others to make any such offering to any martyr, holy soul, or angel. If anyone among us falls into this error, he is corrected with sound doctrine and must either mend his ways or be shunned.
The saints themselves forbid anyone to offer them the worship they know is reserved for God, as is clear from the case of Paul and Barnabas. When the Lycaonians were so amazed by their miracles that they wanted to sacrifice to them as gods, the apostles tore their garments, declared that they were not gods, urged the people to believe them, and forbade them to worship them.
Yet the truths we teach are one thing; the abuses thrust upon us are another. There are commandments we are bound to uphold; there are breaches of them we are commanded to correct, but until we correct them, we must, of necessity, tolerate them.
Excerpts from Saint Augustine, year 563.