"Should there be contact with the dead?"

Some faiths feel that there should be no contact with the dead. In Deuteronomy 18:10-11, 14-15, God has forbidden the practice of conjuriing up spirits.We are not to conjure the dead for purpose of gaining information; one is to look to God's prophets instead. There is a big difference in someone holding a seance and a son praying at his father's grave saying, "Hey Dad, I am having a difficult day and am asking you to pray to Jesus for me." The seance is an occult practice which God does not approve and the second example is just a humble asking for a loved one to pray to God on his behalf. God even gave us contact with the dead when He had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples at the transfiguration (Matt. 17:3) The disciple Paul appears to be praying for a dead person, Onesiphorus, in 2 Timothy 1:16-18.

Another question I have heard is "Why not just pray directly to Jesus?  The Catholic answer is of course one should pray directly to Jesus!! But that does not mean it is not also a good thing to ask others to pray for us. The "directly to Jesus" point can fly back in the face of the one who makes it: Why should we ask any Christian, in heaven or earth, to pray for us when we can go to Jesus? If the fact that we can go straight to Jesus proved that we should ask no Christian in heaven to pray for us, then it would also prove that we wouldn't need any Christian on earth to pray for us.

Praying  for each other is simply part of what Christians do. St. Paul strongly encouraged Christians to intercede for many things in 1 Timothy 2:1-4.Of course we should pray to Jesus for every important need we have ( John 14:13-14). The prayers of the Catholic Mass, the central part of Catholic worship, are directed to God and Jesus, not the saints.

I am not sure of the exact words that Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York City used, but it went something like this: When I pray to Jesus, sometimes I bring my friends along with me. This is how he was explaining to others what it means to have the saints pray with you to Jesus.