It’s All Souls Day — a day in which some Christians commemorate the faithful departed, mainly through prayer.

Few topics, however, escalate among Christians as quickly as how to regard the dead.

Some say those who venerate the dead are participating in idol worship, which is clearly forbidden by Scripture.

By the time this publishes, I’ll be in Rome, and will have passed by and venerated quite a few dead people. Am I pagan? Some of my Christian friends would say so. But other Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians would argue the point.

Veneration is not the same as worship, which is due to God alone. In veneration, the Catholic Catechism explains, worship is not directed to the image or person being venerated, “but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God

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