Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
History and Religion
Invocation of Saints: Catholic Scholars vs. Me? Nope!

Invocation of Saints: Catholic Scholars vs. Me? Nope!

Last updated on: June 13, 2026 at 1:10 pm by Dave Armstrong

0 Comments

Invocation of Saints: Catholic Scholars vs. Me? Nope! 2026-06-13T13:10:27-04:00 Dave Armstrong

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

: cover of my 2012 book (as editor), published by Sophia Institute Press.

This took place in the combox of our video, “Can Catholics Pray to Saints? YES! This Bible Passage Proves It!” (2-6-26), about Luke 16 and the rich man praying to Abraham. I asserted that Revelation 5:8 and Revelation 8:3-4 established the doctrine of intercession of saints and angels, and by implication, also invocation of them. A guy who goes by the nickname His words are in blockquotes below, time-stamped to the video, so you can find each one in Me’s presentation.

*****

[Me] I would also note that you’re making a case contrary to that of multiple respected Catholic authorities, including a former Pope. This is yet another one of those cases where the joke about “… asking five priests and getting 10 different answers …” seems to hold true. I’ve got to find my study notes (I’ve been at this for decades), but I can provide you direct quotes from about five Catholic authorities who state directly that the practice of praying to the Saints or Mary is not derived from scripture.

[Me] This causes me to wonder why so many Catholic apologies [sic] insist that it is found in scripture. It appears that they don’t even know the works of their own scholars. I mean here you are insisting that you’ve made an airtight case, and that I as a Protestant cannot possibly reason through or interpret the scripture correctly … yet I find authoritative Catholic sources agreeing with me.

****

[Me] This came up in an exchange with Dave and I think that it bears posting in a place where it’s more obvious to the casual viewer. Having spent a lot of time in actual libraries, reading actual books by Catholic scholars, this is only a part of my study notes on the subject. It appears that Dave’s position on this is at odds with acknowledged Catholic scholars:

[Me] Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) Source: Introduction to Christianity, 2nd ed. (Ignatius Press, 2004), p. 319.

[Me] “The New Testament does not yet know the practice of invoking the saints; this belongs to a later development of Christian piety.”

[Me] John Henry Newman Source: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Longmans, Green, 1909), p. 103.

[Me] “The cultus of the saints… is not found in Scripture; it is a development of the Church’s devotional life.”

[Me] Raymond E. Brown Source 1: The Birth of the Messiah, updated ed. (Doubleday, 1993), p. 108.

[Me] “There is no evidence in the New Testament of Christians praying to departed believers or to Mary; such practices arise only in later centuries.”

[Me] Source 2: Mary in the New Testament (Fortress Press, 1978), p. 67.

[Me] “The New Testament gives us no indication that early Christians invoked Mary or the saints.”

[Me] Karl Rahner Source: Theological Investigations, vol. 18 (Crossroad, 1983), p. 112.

[Me] “Invocation of the saints is not a practice derived from the New Testament; it is grounded in the Church’s tradition and its understanding of the communion of saints.”

[Me] Yves Congar Source: Tradition and Traditions (Burns & Oates, 1966), p. 410.

[Me] “The practice of invoking the saints does not come from Scripture but from the Church’s tradition and the evolution of Christian devotion.”

[Me] Ludwig Ott Source: Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (TAN Books, 1974), p. 319.

[Me] “Holy Scripture does not mention invocation of the saints; the practice is based on Tradition.”

[Me] George Tavard Source: The Church, Community of Salvation (Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 145.

[Me] “The New Testament contains no trace of prayers addressed to saints; this is a later development of Christian piety.”

[Me] Summary: Across the spectrum of Catholic biblical scholarship, theology, and doctrinal analysis, there is broad acknowledgment that praying to saints or Mary is not taught in Scripture. These scholars defend the practice on the basis of Tradition, development, and the Church’s magisterial authority, not on biblical derivation.

***

I’m delighted that you bring this up. Since development of doctrine was the main reason why I became a Catholic (after having read Newman’s Essay on Development; I’ve also compiled three books of his quotations) and is my favorite theological topic, I would really enjoy talking about it. The problem is, I meet very few Protestants who understand it. They operate on caricatures of what it is. I don’t think you’ll be an exception, but I hope you are! Then the discussion would be more fun, if you don’t decide to split and disappear, just when the dialogue is getting interesting and constructive (another common tactic I encounter).

I spent a good chunk of time trying to find the first quote from Cdl. Ratzinger. I even looked at the same edition you cite on Google Books, on the page you cite, and it wasn’t there. I’m not questioning that it exists somewhere, but I just wanted to examine the context. Perhaps you can give me an online link with it. But you are likely just passing on lists you got from somewhere else.

Assuming that he wrote this, he’s simply expressing the thought — as are most if not all in your collection — that the belief and practice of the communion and invocation and intercession of the saints were in a very primitive and undeveloped form at the time the Bible was written. Of course I fully agree with that (always have in 35 years as a Catholic), so there is no disagreement here between myself and these scholars (and one pope).

But I did find the following from Cdl. Ratzinger when he was pope, in which he used essentially the same argument that I made, from Revelation 5 and 8:

In the vision of the Book of Revelation this prayer of petition is portrayed by an important detail: “the 24 elders” and “the four living beings” hold in their hands, together with the harp that accompanies their singing, “golden bowls full of incense” (5:8a) which, as is explained “are the prayers of the saints” (5:8b), namely, of those who have already reached God but ALSO OF ALL OF US WHO ARE JOURNEYING ON. And we see that in front of God’s throne an angel is holding a golden censer in his hand into which he continues to put grains of incense, that is OUR PRAYER, whose sweet fragrance is offered together with the prayers that rise to God (cf. Rev 8:1-4). It is a symbolism that tells us how all our prayers — with every possible limitation, effort, poverty, dryness and imperfection they may have — are so to speak purified and reach God’s heart. In other words we can be sure that there is no such thing as superfluous or useless prayers; no prayer is wasted. And prayers are answered, . . . (General Audience, 9-12-12)

I’m having trouble finding the Newman quote as well. I searched the Essay at the Newman Reader (it has all his works) and Internet Archive and Google Books (searching the Essay in all three) and couldn’t find it. This is more likely to be a bogus quote, because one can search the complete book. Again, if you can locate it and give me a link so I can examine context, I’d be grateful. But then, links might not be allowed in the combox (except for me and Kenny). You can always write to me and let me know.

But I did find Newman writing in a letter to an unknown person, dated 4 March 1843 while still an Anglican: “There is nothing in Scripture against invocation of saints.” That’s from Correspondence of John Henry Newman with John Keble and Others, 1839-1845 (Longmans, Green , and Co., 1917, p. 207). But again, if he did write this, it would be easy to fit into his schema of development. Referring to a “cultus” means that he meant the more established practice and belief-system, that took time to develop. What I find are fascinating kernels of the doctrine of the saints in Scripture. They’re not nothing. They can’t simply be dismissed out of hand, and Protestants need to coherently explain them.

You need to tell me where you got this entire list. I highly doubt that you came up with it yourself. Did you? If you didn’t, you found it from another source, and you can tell me what it is. If you wanna swear on a stack of Bibles that you came up with the whole thing, then by all means do so. Otherwise, I am suspicious, because these are very common tactics. And as we see, there is already trouble running down the first two quotes.

I have the Ludwig Ott book, 1974 edition, as well as the 2018 revision that was done by a good friend of mine: a Catholic professor of systematic theology!: the same sort of people you are trying to pit me against. I looked up the alleged quotation that is supposedly on page 319, according to you, or the person you got the list from. But you endorse it by repeating it. It ain’t there. But OTT does write on page 318: “Holy Writ does not explicitly refer to the veneration and invocation of saints, but it asserts the principle out of which Church teaching and practice developed.” That’s exactly what I would say. So there is no disagreement between Dr. Ott and I. But he disagrees with you, because you misattributed a quotation to him, which by this point makes me extremely suspicious of your list. The first three can’t be found, and the third from my own paperback copy.

Ott also asserts: “The biblical proof of the doctrine of the intercession of the saints is derived from 2 Mach. 15, 14 . . . ” (p. 319). Since he regards the deuterocanon as Scripture, he couldn’t possibly also write what you claim he wrote, because he asserts a biblical proof here. On page 318 he offers several biblical proofs of the intercession of saints:, noting that in 2 Mac. 15:11-16, “the High Priest Onias and the Prophet Jeremias, intercede with God for the Jewish people and for the Holy City. Cf. Jer. 15, 1.” He cites Tobit 12:12, connecting it with Revelation 5:8 and 8:3 (my arguments) and concludes, “The propriety of invoking them logically follows from the fact of their intercession.” Okay, so that’s now three quotations that can’t be found and/or are completely bogus and made up: especially the one “from” Ott, of which there can be little doubt now: it is spurious and nonexistent.

***

Then he replied to someone else:

[Me] If you can at first acknowledge – as these Catholic authorities do – that praying to the saints is a theological development rather than something derived from Scripture, that’s an honest point of departure to some other argument.

***

@ZTAudio probably wont be here long, if things keep going as badly for him as they have already gone. I know how these processes work. :-)

[Me] If you mean, I exit conversations where people resort to calling me a liar and other ad hominem attacks, you are 100% correct. At that point, I simply note the nature of that argumentation, and what it might indicate about the person making it and move on.

I don’t have a problem with admitting when I’m wrong. I do have a problem with other people can’t plainly admit they’re wrong. And I have a giant problem with ad hominem arguments. Whether it’s you or Dave, my response is to simply call them out and then stop responding… I don’t deal with bullies.

I’m giving you extensive counter-arguments: replying directly to your claims. With the first three quotations I examined (real or alleged) I couldn’t even find two, and I searched extensively: especially the Newman one; and the third is definitely bogus and spurious. This doesn’t bode well for the others, which I will also examine, and all of it will be preserved for posterity on my blog. If you wanna run from that, feel free, but it won’t look good. The problem now is that if I find more bogus quotes, you will be embarrassed even more and it’ll be hard for any of us to take you seriously.

But hey, maybe the list will get better as I proceed through it! And I respect any person who admits to having made an innocent, honest mistake. We all blow facts sometimes. I have said that you are falsely portraying what the New Testament teaches on this topic and what these scholars teach, and falsely making out that I contradict my own Church and its prominent thinkers. I do not. I don’t claim that you are deliberately lying, knowing what you say is false. My consistent position is that a person is probably simply ignorant and that they sincerely believe what they do, unless overwhelming evidence refutes that.

I’ll remove a few potshots I took, and you have my sincere apology. That said, you have made very serious charges against me, that are not called-for at all, and now you are attempting to argue that I deliberately contradict the highest teachers in my Church, as a professional apologist these past 25 years. I don’t take kindly to that — it goes after my competence in what I do as my vocation and calling from God and also my intellectual honesty — , and I am in the process of dismantling it now, because you made this accusation in public, with many thousands potentially seeing it. I mustrespond to that, because I can’t let falsehood about my very credentials in what I do, go out for thousands to read.

You brought this up. Now you’ll have to deal with it, because no one misrepresents my work and my integrity in public and gets away with it without a very comprehensive response from me, showing in detail that it is an erroneous view. Ultimately, it’s not me so much as it is the fact that such unfounded criticisms are intended to undermine Catholic apologetics and theology themselves, by going after me as a representative of them. That’s why I must reply to this sort of thing: precisely because it’s a public accusation. My hero and role model St. Paul vigorously defended himself at his trial, and my hero, St. Cardinal Newman did so in a book: Apologia pro vita sua, when someone questioned his basic honesty and sincerity.

As I start my second reply I want to note an important thing. I respect Catholic scholarship insofar as it is orthodox and it holds to actual Catholic beliefs. Too often, a lot of it is not that. Fr. Raymond Brown was a theological liberal. In his Birth of the Messiah that you cite, he questions the historicity of the infancy narratives and the Annunciation to Mary, and he wrote that it’s “pre-critical and naive” to believe that Mary actually spoke the words of the Magnificat. See much more on his heterodox views.

I only bring his case up because contra-Catholic polemics often draw from liberal Catholic scholars in the attempt to distance them as supposed “authorities” against lay apologists like myself, who are 100% rock-solid orthodox. Fr. Brown is one of the most common ones used. And it’s also often claimed that Cdl. Newman was some sort of liberal / modernist, when in fact he was not at all.

But considering all of your sources, you have five priest-scholars, Cdl. Newman, who is now a Doctor of the Church, and Cdl. Ratzinger, writing 36 years before he became a pope. None are, therefore, magisterial sources (even bishops are only in ecumenical councils, in certain statements, ratified by popes), and technically, I am perfectly free as an orthodox Catholic to disagree with any of them. We don’t take head counts of scholars to determine our doctrines, as so many Protestants do. Our beliefs come from a constant ever-developing tradition built up by bishops meeting in ecumenical councils confirmed by popes, and by papal encyclicals, as well as from the important input of other thinkers and prominent saints, etc..

Even then there are complex criteria for determining what we are absolutely bound to believe. Even Doctors of the Church can be mistaken in particulars. Aquinas was wrong about Mary’s immaculate conception; Augustine about some aspects of predestination. And a pope writing before he was a pope expresses opinions that any Catholic is at liberty to disagree with. That said, we respect the scholars, but they are not ironclad authorities. They’re not the magisterium. So all you’re doing is trying to besmirch my credibility by claiming that I supposedly am massively at odds with all these “big names” with regard to the invocation of saints and the Bible.

In fact, I am not, because it comes down to development of doctrine, and I fully agree with them on that. I’ve also already shown that Ludwig Ott did not believe what you attributed to him. He’s in complete agreement with me and how I argue this area of doctrine. In fact, I probably drew some of my arguments from his book, which I have had in my library since 1990.

So I proceed. I’m not gonna deal with Fr. Brown because I take a low view of his liberal views. But there is a sense in which I can agree with what he wrote, that would, no doubt, be made more clear in examining the context. But note that he talked about “Christians” invoking saints. The argument from Luke 16 isn’t about a Christian, but about Jewish people, including Abraham. The argument is relevant to key presuppositions related to the debate on the intercession of saints. That’s why many — including yourself — misunderstand it, because it has logical and theological nuance and subtlety.

In any event, the doctrine is in a very primitive form in the New Testament, but there is enough to make some intriguing and challenging arguments from the Bible, and I believe I have done so. Pope Benedict –when he was the pope! — made the same argument I did (regarding Revelation 5 and 8), after all. That leaves three men to address. I found the Rahner book on Google Books, but it was the 1961 edition. I searched “invocation” and your quotation dot not come up. So I seem to be at a dead end there, but again, if he wrote this, it’s likely to be in a development of doctrine sense that I would 100% agree with, as with all of these (i.e., the actual quotes and not the bogus ones).

I can’t access Congar on either Google Books or Internet Archive, so can’t consult the context. I’m quite sure that the context (if it’s a real quote, of course!) would prove that his view is no different from mine. I could access and search Tavard on Google Books but couldn’t find the quote (real or imagined) that you bring up. I’m perfectly free to make apologetic arguments using Scripture as long as I am not defending something the Church doesn’t teach. Thee are only a very few passages in the Bible that Catholics are bound to interpret a single way. As for the rest, we are as free as any Protestant exegete to make our arguments. And so I do. This is a non-starter and a non-issue. And I ask again, did you come up with all this or get it from someone else? If the latter, who?

As I have now shown, there is no big gulf between them [the scholars he mentioned] and me at all. It was simply a matter of understanding development of doctrine. It’s also true that most Catholic thinkers — like the Church fathers — believe in the material sufficiency of Scripture: the notion that all Catholic doctrines are in the Bible, either explicitly or indirectly, implicitly, or deduced from explicit doctrines.

Hence, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “We ought not to say about God anything which is not found in Holy Scripture either explicitly or implicitly.” (Summa Theologica, 1, q. 36, a. 2 ad 1)

Accordingly, I defend Catholic doctrines by using these biblical indications, since Protestants agree that the Bible is inspired. One persuades someone else by starting with a premise where both agree, and moving on from there. With Protestants, that’s the Bible.

It’s also relevant that I have 19 Imprimaturs and Nihil Obstats from four bishops, including my own two bishops, over the last 24 years, and that my first book was endorsed in a Foreword by Servant of God Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ: one of the leading catechists of the late 20th century, and a close advisor to Pope St. Paul VI and St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa). That hardly suggests that I am in conflict with Catholic bishops and scholars and am some sort of loose cannon.

I’m also good friends with Dr. Robert Fastiggi: professor of systematic theology at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. He often advises me regarding more technical topics that I write about, and I host many of his articles on my blog. As the editor and translator of the most recent (2012) edition of the Enchiridion symbolorum: the standard source of Catholic dogma, and of the revised version of Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott, he is unquestionably one of the leading Catholic scholars in the world concerning Catholic dogmas and beliefs.

It’s funny: James Swan, a virulent anti-Catholic, who has made himself my nemesis since 2003 — constantly misrepresenting my work for 23 years –, attempted to pit me against Catholic scholarship, too, last month, just as you have done. His “argument” was that The Catholic Answer Bible (2002: my first published book: I did the 44 apologetics inserts) and The New Catholic Answer Bible (2005): both published by the largest Catholic publisher: Our Sunday Visitor, supposedly had Imprimaturs for the Bible translation and commentary, but not for my notes. WRONG! He doesn’t read very well. Both clearly specify that the inserts were granted an Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat as well. So, nice try, but no cigar.

And this is how all of these efforts to besmirch my writing and competence as a researcher and apologist end up. But a lot fewer people will see that article, compared to how many will see this.

You still need to explain:

1. Either where you got this list, or whether you came up with it yourself.

2. How you managed to produce a “quote” allegedly from Newman’s Essay on Development that I couldn’t find in three different searches online. It’s now established that it’s absolutely inauthentic (at least in this book), because I went back to look at the copy of the book at the Newman Reader, and it’s the 1909 edition that you cite: I read page 103 and the “quote” isn’t there. That page isn’t even in a section that has anything to do with the communion of saints. It’s located in Chapter 3: “On the Historical Argument in behalf of the Existing Developments; Section 1. Method of Proof.”

Anyone can check it out themselves and see that you somehow, in all of your “decades” of studies, and “a lot of time in actual libraries, reading actual books by Catholic scholars”, produced a completely bogus quote. This pretty much proves that you got the list from somewhere else, and that you didn’t look over these “quotations” yourself. Or if you did, it’s far worse, because how could you possibly explain this one or the other bogus “quotation” from Ludwig Ott? You have lost all credibility: at least on this topic.

You’ll probably take that as a personal attack. It’s not. Rather, it’s documented proof of your incompetence in terms of understanding or critiquing Catholicism, and particularly, the development of doctrine (whereas I’ve written a book about that, host probably the most extensive Internet page on the topic from a single person, and have edited three books of Cdl. Newman quotations). This is the level of research that you come up with, in order to “disprove” my apologetics? If you can defend yourself, by all means do so. But I don’t see how you can get out of this without retracting and apologizing to everyone for making such outrageous claims, that supposedly cast doubt on my credentials and competence as a professional lay Catholic apologist and author.

Rather, I take this again as evidence of how quickly you resort to impugning my character.

Most of my quotes would be from whatever was in the San Francisco Public Library in the mid 1990s. I worked in a building at 9th and Market, and often did research before/after work, sometime during lunch.

I know what I read. I have the notes that I took. You can again call me names “liar”, “incompetent”, etc. … but I think that speaks more to your disposition and methods than any possible errors in my part. I’ll stipulate here that I could have taken poor notes, or perhaps there are revisions in various editions … as occurs quite often in Catholic works (retconning doctrine is pretty common in my opinion). One might charitably understand that without stooping to insult.

You might note here that – once again – I am open to correction, and that I’ve never once called you a name or suggested some character flaw on your part … except perhaps to note that you stoop to such tactics.

I’m not “anti-Catholic”. Nor am I one of those who thinks that Catholics are not Christians. I don’t consider the Catholic Church a “cult”. However, you’re exhibiting the same kind of behavior that I might encounter when speaking to a Scientologist or a MoonIe … quick to anger, always on the attack, constantly pivoting to avoid logical conclusions … or changing the goal posts.

And I think I can see some insight into how you reason. You established your bona fide it’s not by reference to independent sources, but by reference to in-group authorities. What’s worse is despite your credentials, you don’t seem to understand that this is what you’re doing. That lack of introspection is frankly quite shocking.

Right. But of course you’re not attacking me at all. Who could possibly think that! I guess the best concession we’ll get out of you for this mess is “I could have taken poor notes.” Thanks for that at least. Every thousand-mile journey begins with the first step. I have now absolutely proven that the Newman “quote” and the Ott “quote” do not exist: at least not on the supposed page numbers you produced, in the editions you claimed to have drawn from. I have the Ott 1974 edition in my library, and he was the one who produced several biblical arguments for the invocation of the saints.

I have most of Newman’s books in early editions, but I don’t have the 1909 edition of the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine in my own library. But Newman Reader posted it online, and the “quote” was nonexistent, and the page number you gave had nothing to do with the saints at all.

You should split now before it gets any worse. I say this in charity, rather than with any or all of the imaginary emotions and states of mind and heart that you ridiculously attribute to me. If you wish to critique Catholic theology and apologetics and Catholic apologists (particularly, me) it looks like you’ll have to spend a few more “decades” to get it right, or a few months, at the very least.

Of course, you’re welcome to stay here and put up more arguments if you like, but if this is the example of what you’re gonna come up with, your stay won’t be a very pleasant one.

I never claimed you were anti-Catholic, either. That’s why I didn’t list the blog paper about this on my Anti-Catholicism page. I put it in the sub-section of attacks on apologetics and apologists, on my Catholic Apologetics web page. But to me, that makes it even more pathetic. At least the anti-Catholics have the “excuse” (if it even is one) of extreme bias, leading to absurd pseudo-arguments and all sorts of worthless nonsense. You have no such excuse.

But your example still nonetheless is a classic case of how shoddy the cases and arguments against Catholics and Catholic apologists so often are.

You established your bona fide it’s not by reference to independent sources, but by reference to in-group authorities.

Of course! It’s precisely because you attempted to say that I was in conflict with folks in my own “in-group.” How can I respond to and refute that by appealing to secular or Protestant scholars (though I do note that my book, The Quotable Wesley was published by a major Wesleyan / Methodist publishing house: The Foundry)? I have shown that I’m in complete harmony with Catholic authority and scholars, whether it is Fr. Hardon, a renowned catechist up for possible sainthood, Dr. Robert Fastiggi, who edited the latest edition of Denzinger’s Enchiridion symbolorum, or the four bishops who granted my work an Imprimatur, 19 times. And there are many others, too.

Who’s “changing the goal posts” now? Just give it up. You can’t repair the damage to your credibility here. But we can all learn and try to do better. You won’t do that by continuing to make ludicrous attacks against my work and my competence, which are pretty clearly specimens of mere projection at this point.

[Me] I suddenly realized who you are, from some tangles we had back about 20 years ago. You haven’t changed a bit, which is both delightful and demonstrative at the same time! I just had a nagging at the back of my mind: “Where have I seen this before?” And then I started noting: Circular arguments, constant context switching and equivocation, quick to insult, takes dogma as the final authority and shoehorns history and scripture to fit it … O.M.G. … it’s THAT guy from years ago! You won’t remember me because I never sought any audience or notoriety. You were a bully then, and you’re still a bully. That’s why I stopped arguing with you years ago and that’s why I won’t continue now.

That’s a classy exit. Rather than manfully and Christianly retracting your slanders and admitting that you completely blew whatever it was you were trying to accomplish, you part with a flurry of additional insults. It’s all MY fault. I’m Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, and a big bully because I dared to prove that you produced two completely bogus “quotations” from Newman and Ott! That’s clearly bullying!

You’re not equipped to engage in these discussions about Catholic theology. The sooner you admit that, the better it’ll be. Learn from it, repent and confess your sins (to God, at least, if not to the one you committed them against) and determine to do a better job in the future.

Farewell and all God’s blessings to you!

I ain’t gonna ban you, because then, of course, you’ll go barking around about how I am such a bully because I banned you, because I couldn’t answer your dazzling, brilliant arguments, etc.! I know how the game is played. I’ve been observing it for 30 years online, as of next month.

You could and should reform your behavior and retract, and people here (including me) would greatly respect you for doing it and we could move on to some fun and educational discussions.

[Me] I’ll just note the hyperbolic nature of your reply, and your use of verbiage I never used or implied. This is you, being you. You demonstrate my case while in the middle of denying it! Bullies really hate it when you call them out on their nonsense. Again, I’m happy enough with this exchange to simply point at it as an example of who you are and how you operate.

***

Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become a Catholic or to return to the Catholic Church, or better understand some doctrines and why Catholics believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).

PayPal donations are the easiest: just send to my email address: [email protected]. Here’s also a second page to get to PayPal. You’ll see the term “Catholic Used Book Service”, which is my old side-business. To learn about the different methods of contributing (including Zelle and 100% tax-deductible donations if desired), see my page: About Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong / Donation Information.

You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my two YouTube channels, Catholic Bible Highlights and Lux Veritatis, in partnership with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!

***

Photo credit: cover of my 2012 book (as editor), published by Sophia Institute Press.

Summary: A Protestant tried to argue that I contradict Catholic scholars as regards the invocation of saints in the Bible. But I proved that he produced two fake, bogus citations “from” them.

Catholic Apologetics

Saints & Purgatory & Penance

communion of saints

intercession of the saints

invocation of saints

Lazarus & the rich man

necromancy

praying to saints

Previous Post

February 6, 2026

Can We Pray to Saints? YES! Luke 16 Proves It