Does Matthew 27:47 support praying to the saints?

Remarkably, some Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox cite the passage to that end. Let's think about the passage from a few different angles.

Is Paul praying to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:25?

Obviously not, in any relevant sense. But I recently saw somebody raise 1 Thessalonians 5:25 in a discussion about praying to saints and angels. For whatever reason, it's common for Roman Catholics and those who are sympathetic to Catholicism to claim that Catholics don't pray to saints. Rather, they just ask the saints to pray for them. And I saw somebody bring up 1 Thessalonians 5:25 as an example. The passage not only doesn't support the Catholic practice of praying to saints and angels, but even illustrates one of the problems with the practice.

Did the resurrection witnesses have an opportunity to recant?

Skeptics occasionally suggest that the people who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead may have been willing to renounce that claim, but were never given an opportunity to do so. Or it will be suggested that we should be agnostic on issues of recantation, since we don't have enough evidence to go by.