We read
in the books of the Maccabees that sacrifice is offered for the dead. Yet, even
if it were read nowhere in the Old Testament, the authority of the universal
Church which clearly favors this practice is of great weight, where in the
prayers of the priest which are poured forth to the Lord God at His altar the
commemoration of the dead has its place. (“The Care to be Taken for the Dead,”
chapter 1, 3 , translated by John A. Lacy, in Treatises on Marriage and Other
Subjects [The Fathers of the Church 27; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1955, 1985], 353)