Whoever participates in funeral ceremonies throughout the history of humanity is implicitly professing Catholic faith in the "life of the world to come"--the ultimate Article of the Catholic Profession of Faith.
So, on this--how shall we call it?, "Day of the Dead"--if we are not to worship death (which would make no sense at all: why bother?--one might as well be dead!) we must hope for life! So, we pray. Hence All Souls Day.
We pray to the saints for their assistance from heaven (especially yesterday: All Saints Day!).
We pray for the sinners who would have liked to be saints: that they might receive the mercy of God and attain the glory of heaven.
The damned, once damned, are damned forever, just as the saints in heaven are forever there. That's the logic of eternity. Here we can even hope against hope. (cf. 2 Maccabees 12:38-46)
"It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (2 Maccabees 12:46)
N.B. biblehub.com, which I typically prefer, has apparently censored Maccabees out of all of their bibles! Wow! The scripture link above is to biblegateway.com which is also very convenient with bibles of all various sorts and languages.
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