Veneration Encourages Imitation

Veneration is of greater benefit to those who bestow it than to those who receive it. That is to say, the act of veneration identifies and promotes virtues that are deemed worthy of imitation. As a society, we rightly venerate the dead who have significantly inspired us by their leadership and heroic examples. We express secular acts of veneration in concrete ways by naming libraries, airports, parks and other public works in memory of some great person.

For Catholics, the veneration of those who have died is especially encouraged through the respect and honor we give the saints — these are our older brothers and sisters in the Faith, whom the Church has canonized (declared worthy to be commemorated throughout the world) and set as examples for us to follow — they exemplify Paul’s words “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).