Why do Catholics worship Mary?

[Fez]

This IS NOT, nor is it intended to be, a Catholic bashing session. Please keep on the topic without judgment or condemnation (neither of which I have for our Catholic brothers and sisters).

Try as I might, I cannot find a scriptural reason why the Catholic church worships Mary in so many forms and ways.

Can anyone help me understand the reasoning behind the doctrine?

Grace please, otherwise we shut it down Ok?.

[Fez]

They pray to her statue? They ask her to intercede for them in prayers to Jesus? They parade her statue in many Latin countries in the world in street processions.

Nearly every bus I rode in, every Jeepny I took, every trike I flagged down in Manila, had a Rosary and a staue or picture of Mary taped to the windscreen.

If this is not worship (I consider all prayer as a form of worship), what is it?

I am just trying to understand where Mary fits into our belief system?

"In the Catholic Church, Mary is accorded the title "Blessed," (from Latin beatus, blessed, via Greek μακάριος, makarios and Latin facere, make) in recognition of her ascension to Heaven and her capacity to intercede on behalf of those who pray to her. Catholic teachings make clear that Mary is not considered divine and prayers to her are not answered by her, they are answered by God" - Wiki

My point being, is not all prayer a form of worship?

[goldust59]

I have heard it is based on the scripture where the angel told her she was "highly favored" & "blessed among women". Luke 1:28 My daughter's Catholic friend gave that reason.

[Blien]

Actually the reason they pray to Mary is because apparently it is written somewhere that Jesus made a promise to Mary that if anyone asked her of anything that He would do it for her. This is nowhere in the Bible. I'd like to see where the Catholic and Orthodox priests are getting this promise from. I've looked through the Bible and never found it anywhere.

It's part of the reason why they also pray the Rosary which the majority of the prayers are directed to her. But the story of where the Rosary came from is a whole another issue. Here is the story: Some time ago two children (one girl and one boy) had a vision of "Mary" out in the field and she told them to pray the Rosary and that she would answer their prayers. We had a whole debate about this in my Sunday School just two days ago.

Here is my belief. All visions need to be tested by the word of God to see if they are truly from the Lord. Now what is the purpose of the Rosary? Isn't it to focus on Mary? Why would Mary be so important to pray to (a sinner like us) if the whole New and Old Testament is written about Jesus? Wrong priorities and yes this is a huge deception in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

It's syncretism.

It comes from mother goddess cults that were incorporated when the RCC 'Christianized' pagan territory.

The RCC has, since 313AD, been a political entity, and as such required 'conversion' of the areas that were conquered under the banners of 'Christianity'. Education on the word of God was not rigorously enforced (quite the contrary, in demonstrably point of fact) so the preceding superstitious practices continued.

Instead of combating them with the word of God, most of them were overlooked, many were adopted by the church at large, and some have even been canonized

Mary was rebranded the Queen of Heaven (a term that only appears in the Bible in relation to a Babylonian deity) so that pagan worship could continue under the guise of Christianity.

Given time, because the sacrament of tradition in the RCC has the same weight as scripture (in theory - in practice in necessarily must trump scripture where ever there is a conflict, otherwise you can no longer claim to have an infallible, unchanging church), then the supposed infallible and unchanging church only needs to profess something long enough for it to be canonized.

But that leaves a hefty amount of apologia to account for the unbiblical nature of these beliefs. This is supposedly done via revelations that supposedly illuminate doctrine, which translated means making up reasons for allowing such unbiblical assumptions which must then be cloaked in Biblical sounding language.

As it stands, the veneration of Mary is not touted by the RCC as worship, though by following the Catholic Catechism no good Catholic could help but attribute divine powers to her and thereby worship her for her salvic mediation, grace and deliverance (attributes that belong to God alone), seen in descriptions like:

[David333]

Prayer is a form or type of worship. In the Roman Catholic Churches teaching and doctrine Mary is given a venerated position in thier life of faith. Not only is she given a venerated postion in Roman Catholic doctrine and dogma, she is also taught to be in a position equal to that of God the Father, since she was the "mother of Christ" or catachismically, "the Mother of God" - giving the Divinity of Jesus. This can all be found by reading and studying the Catachism of the Roman Catholic Church. In it, you will also find the requirements one has to meet in order to achieve the state of "Sainthood". This is another of thier doctrines called the "Veneration of the Saints". This, Veneration of the Saints is a way that the followers of The Holy Roman Catholic Church are taught that they should pray to, using written liturgical prayers, as a way of penance in order for a speedy escape from purgatory. There really is no easy way to explain the Veneration of the Saints or the equality of Mary to God, being the Mother of Jesus, without taking all the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church into consideration in order to fully understand why they teach what they teach. The "bashing" of Roman Catholocism comes when someone doesn't have a thourough understanding of the entire, overall doctrine(s) of the Roman Catholic Church. When they just pull one or two items from the Catachism and launch an attack. I have found that this is very sad when done in the name of "witnessing" to them, it does more harm than good.

As a side-note, in Roman Catholic dotrine Mary is also taught to be a perpetual virgin.

Blessings,

David

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

They pray to her statue? They ask her to intercede for them in prayers to Jesus? They parade her statue in many Latin countries in the world in street processions.

Nearly every bus I rode in, every Jeepny I took, every trike I flagged down in Manila, had a Rosary and a staue or picture of Mary taped to the windscreen.

If this is not worship (I consider all prayer as a form of worship), what is it?

I am just trying to understand where Mary fits into our belief system?

"In the Catholic Church, Mary is accorded the title "Blessed," (from Latin beatus, blessed, via Greek μακάριος, makarios and Latin facere, make) in recognition of her ascension to Heaven and her capacity to intercede on behalf of those who pray to her. Catholic teachings make clear that Mary is not considered divine and prayers to her are not answered by her, they are answered by God" - Wiki

My point being, is not all prayer a form of worship?

The argument they give is that prayer is just communication, since Mary and the saint are supposedly not dead, but living in Christ - the rational is that the saints in heaven speak to God, so they can offer intercession if you ask them (pray to them) the same way as a living person can pray on your behalf if you request.

The assertion that the dead aren't really dead is clearly contradicts Hebrews 9:27, "And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment". We see this in Revelation "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power" (Revelation 20:6). So the Bible clearly differentiates between physically dead (first death) and spiritually dead (second death), and communicating with the physically dead is clearly divination according to Deuteronomy, "Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD" (Deut 18: 10-12), since those of the second death would be beyond reach being dead not just to us physically but even spiritually, as well.

Further, no where in the Bible is the term prayer used for anyone who directly commune with God. Adam and Eve didn't pray to God in the garden, the spoke with Him; Moses didn't pray to the burning bush; the saints in revelation speak or cry out, they don't pray.

The obvious contrast is that if I want a friend in China to pray for me and I don't have access to a phone, I can't pray to them to pray for me, so if the dead are alive in Christ clearly they're still out of reach.

Edited February 22, 2011 by OldEnglishSheepdog

[other one]

This IS NOT, nor is it intended to be, a Catholic bashing session. Please keep on the topic without judgment or condemnation (neither of which I have for our Catholic brothers and sisters).

Try as I might, I cannot find a scriptural reason why the Catholic church worships Mary in so many forms and ways.

Can anyone help me understand the reasoning behind the doctrine?

Grace please, otherwise we shut it down Ok?.

You are going to get all kinds of things on the thread Fez. If you want to understand you should go to a priest and ask. They will tell you that they do not worship Mary, but I agree with you that is seems that way to me.

*Edit links*

If you go here and do a search on Mary, you'll find the teachings of the Catholic Church concerning Mary and how they feel about her.

[OneLight]

Are we going fishing again Fez??? I see the can of worms open ...

In all seriousness, I have been told that Mary was, and always be the mother of the Son Jesus, placing her beside the Father.

Here are a few images of her prominence in heaven.

[Leonard]

This IS NOT, nor is it intended to be, a Catholic bashing session. Please keep on the topic without judgment or condemnation (neither of which I have for our Catholic brothers and sisters).

Try as I might, I cannot find a scriptural reason why the Catholic church worships Mary in so many forms and ways.

Can anyone help me understand the reasoning behind the doctrine?

Grace please, otherwise we shut it down Ok?.

People are often confused because of the single English word 'worship' which actually translates numerous words in the Latin. In reference to Mary, Catholics are taught to 'respect and honor' her, but to make her a goddess of some sort is far outside of Roman doctrine. At present many Catholics also misunderstand their own churches' teaching and engage in mariolatry.