Welcome to the first Apologetics Drill here at the home of Fire Branded! This was a feature I first introduced on my Discord server. Now I want to transplant it here at home base. This is why Fire Branded is more than a "podcast"

How this works is I introduce a faulty claim, and a mission for your response to it. You participate in comments, explaining how you would address the claim, and what you'd say. You can use the guidance I offer in each drill, or you can "go it alone" and share your own strategy for how you'd address the claim.

Then in a dropdown menu below, I'll offer my own guidance for how to respond. DO NOT read my guidance before contributing your own.

NOTE: You can only leave a comment as a member of my inner circle. It's free. Now let's do this!

‼️ Claim:

“Catholics pray to the saints because they think God isn’t enough. If God is all-powerful, why bother going through Mary or any other saint? It’s unbiblical and shows a lack of trust in God alone.”

🎯 Your Mission:

Craft a response that is clear, Catholic, and charitable, addressing these points:

  • Does asking saints to pray for us compete with God’s role?
  • Is there anything in Scripture that supports the idea of intercession—humans mediating for one another?
  • How would you explain the distinction between worship (latria) and honor/intercession (dulia/hyperdulia) to someone unfamiliar with the terminology?
  • How can you answer without sounding defensive or hostile?
  • What’s one analogy that might help make the concept understandable?
  • Try to keep your response to 1–2 short paragraphs, like you’re writing to an actual person online.

These points are just to prompt you in case you come up dry. You don't have to follow them exactly.

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Don't cheat! This guidance below is for after you've made your own comment/contribution.👇

My Guidance

This is for after you've offered your own response in a comment, or if you don't plan on responding at all, and would like to see how I'd handle it.

Catholics don’t go “around” God by asking saints for help—**they go deeper into God’s plan for His family. Scripture doesn’t present believers as isolated individuals; it presents them as a Body, spiritually united across heaven and earth (Heb 12:22–24; Rom 12:5). When Catholics ask saints to pray for them, they are doing exactly what Scripture commands Christians to do: “pray for one another” (James 5:16, 1 Tim 2:1). If prayer from ordinary humans doesn’t diminish God’s sufficiency, then prayer from glorified humans in heaven doesn’t either. The issue is never worship. Catholics offer latria—worship—to God alone. The saints receive dulia, the honor Scripture shows toward God’s friends (e.g., Hebrews 11). Mary receives hyperdulia, a unique honor, but never worship. Asking a saint to pray for you is simply asking a member of Christ’s Body, now perfected in charity, to join their prayers to yours—just like asking any Christian on earth. An effective analogy: If you believe God hears your prayers, then God also hears the prayers of His saints in heaven. Asking them to pray for you doesn’t replace God—it multiplies the voices calling on Him.