Confession To A Priest And Praying To Saints

[phatcatholic]

lumberjack,

i wanted to go ahead and set aside a place to address the following quote:

Confession of sins to a priest (a mediator between God and man) [see I Timothy 2:5 - "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" / I Peter 2:5 (speaking of all Christians being a priesthood)]

Prayers to dead saints (see Deuteronomy 18:10-12 - "Let no one be found among you who... who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD...")

Offering of masses, prayers and rosaries for those who suffer in "purgatory" (see Hebrews 9:27 - "...Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.")

is THAT in accordance with the BIBLE?

i am in the process of compiling the necessary biblical evidence. until then, others feel free to chime in.

pax christi,

phatcatholic

[Laudate_Dominum]

I'd rather wait for your reply phatcatholic, since it will not doubt be completely adequate. But I did want to mention something I thought of after I saw The Passion which applies to praying to saints.

In the Gospel when Jesus is on the Cross He cries out and says "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!". The crowds though He was crying out to Elijah (a "dead" saint in heaven). They don't say, "what a sinner, praying to dead guys". No they say "let us see whether Elijah will come to save him". So it would seem that they didn't have any problem with Jesus invoking the intercession of a saint but actually believed it was possible for a saint to answer one's prayers.