Do Catholics have any concerns about apparitions of Mary?

Question

As a non-catholic, one of my truly huge objections to Catholicism is the place of prominence given to Mary in worship. The recent news about some Arkansas nuns having to be excommunicated due to channeling Mary's spirit seems to point to the danger of giving too much acceptance to Mary's messages from beyond. If I google "messages from mary" many websites appear with supposed "quotes" from mary that appear occult in nature. What is your feeling about this?

here is the requested link to the story:

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/09/27/nuns.excommunicated.ap/index.html?eref=edition_us

The latin terms used to differentiate between worship of mary and worship of God see, from my point of view, merely technical. The modern day doctrines concerning mary don't do anything but take the focus off of christ and put it onto a being who can appear and give us "messages". I find this highly suspect.

Answer 1

I think that this is a great question. Now I was born Catholic and raised that as well - including married in the church. I have not been a Catholic for about 12 or so years. In fact, I became a Buddhist.

One of the issuesProtestants have with the Church was the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Her role is based solely on revelation and tradition and (despite passages quoted out of context) definitely not Biblical.

Her power as a co-redemtrix (which is a gathering movement in the church) will essentially make the Church no longer "Christian" but, instead, Christian based. She was only declared as born free from sin in the 19th Century and her mother, Saint Anne, was also declared born free of sin. In the Bible only Jesus is born without sin. Mary being born without the curse of Adam opens a whole can of worms from which the Church could take on very non-monotheistic doctrines.

That is the worst case scenario. The current issue with Mary is that she represents a vessel by which one can gain the grace of Christ and the forgiveness of sin because she is his mother. But, at least to me, the whole idea behind the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus was to gain immediate access to God in the person of Jesus through the power of the Holy Ghost. Mary becomes a another hurdle in that access.

I should clarify that, from my point of view, this is neither good nor bad as I do not believe any of it. As long as Catholics are true to the moral and ethical tenents of their faith they are on a good path. Now thats a hell of a caveat.

Answer 2

I'm a former Catholic (altho the church says"Once a Catholic..always a Catholic") (so I guess I'm a "bad Catholic) Anyway....I grew up trying to show love and honor for Mary and the saints. I don't believe I ever thought of her as "God". We didn't talk much about "worship" or "praise"...we just sang the songs and prayed. Wouldn't you show honor and respect for the mother of the One you love and serve? I don't believe those nuns are on the right track. Just because something is spiritual, doesn't mean it's God...or of God. But, I think if Mary appeared to you...she would pour her love on you and you'd fall down from not being able to stand up under the power of love. That's not the same as worship...not to me anyway. I think I probably "worshiped " Elvis more that Mary. Shame on me !!!!

Answer 3

Channeling, or any sort of soliciting of messages from "beyond" is against Church teaching, and objectively sinful. That is why the nuns were excommunicated. Authentic apparitions do occur (such as when St. Michael appeared to Joshua, St. Gabriel to St. Mary, the apparitions at Fatima, etc.)

If St. Mary had been holding a séance to summon St. Gabriel, she would have been seriously sinning (and we possibly would have, all of us, been damned, since the person God designed to become His mother would have fallen into sin, and she would no longer have been able to bear Jesus).

Now, as for your fears about the Catholic Church's recognition of the importance of Mary, I understand; I came from a Pentecostal background myself. However, it was God who first honoured Mary, not the Church. The Church follows suit, and honors God in doing so. The wildest, most exuberant and zealous honors heaped upon Mary by Catholics could come nowhere near the honors God heaped upon her. Participating in His honoring of Her is something that pleases Him, not something that threatens Him.

Answer 4

If an apparition of Mary is real then, like all miracles, it is done with the power of God and in accordance with His will.

The Catholic Church investigates the apparitions and condemns most of them as false.

For a very few, the Church announces that an apparition as worthy of belief, but belief is never required.

The Catholic Church teaches that the time public revelation ended with the death of the last living Apostle.

A Marian apparition, if deemed genuine by Church authority, is treated as private revelation that may emphasize some facet of the received public revelation for a specific purpose, but it can never add new doctrine.

With love in Christ.

Answer 5

Mary is our Mother as we are members of the Body of Christ but, she is not to be worshiped. We love her as our Mother. The supposed visions of Mary and appearances on grilled cheese sandwiches and stuff are unsettling in a way because they detract from the real ones---Fatima and Lourdes and quite possibly some others that have not been officially approved yet. So many of these false ones make a mockery of the real devotion to Mary which does not detract from her son at all because she draws people to her son. A "Mary" that does not point to her son, Jesus, is to be avoided at all costs.

Answer 6

The Catholic Church strictly forbids Mary to be on the same level as any of the Trinity. The nuns who were excommunicated we're excommunicated rightly so. They were placing Mary as equal to that of the Trinity.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is to be honored not worshiped.

Answer 7

the only way we are able to answer it is to examine the bible and notice what it says approximately those visions. From Leviticus 20:6 and a million Samuel 28, we see that God is against all people consulting spirits. 1Corinthians 5:3 says that as quickly as we are absent interior the physique, we are at present contemporary with the Lord. Luke sixteen:20 has a narrative of Lazarus and the wealthy guy and whilst they died they at present went to paradise and hell at present. whilst the wealthy guy asked to come again back to earth, it replaced into denied. for this reason, with those 3 passages and greater, we see that despite the fact that spirit apparitions that occurs, isn't probable the spirit of the ineffective individual and for this reason, could be from the fallen angels that replaced into forged to earth. i think those apparitions are real and human beings actual see them yet based on the bible which i think to be authentic, those apparitions could be satanic in nature.

Answer 8

Latria is a Greek term used in Catholic theology to mean adoration, which is the highest form of worship or reverence and is directed only to the Holy Trinity.

Latria is sacrificial in character, and may be offered only to God. Catholics offer other degrees of reverence to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Saints; these non-sacrificial types of reverence are called Hyperdulia and Dulia, respectively. Hyperdulia is essentially a heightened degree of dulia provided only to the Blessed Virgin.

In Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglo Catholic theology, veneration is a type of honor distinct from the worship due to God alone. Church theologians have long adopted the terms latria for the sacrificial worship due to God alone, and dulia for the veneration given to saints and icons. Catholic theology also includes the term hyperdulia for the type of veneration specifically paid to Mary, mother of Jesus, in Catholic tradition. This distinction is spelled out in the dogmatic conclusions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787), which also decreed that iconoclasm (forbidding icons and their veneration) is a heresy that amounts to a denial of the incarnation of Jesus.

Veneration is a religious symbolic act giving honor to someone by honoring an image of that person, particularly applied to saints.

The Blessed Virgin, as manifesting in a sublimer manner than any other creature the goodness of God, deserves from us a higher recognition and deeper veneration than any other of the saints; and this peculiar cultus due to her because of her unique position in the Divine economy, is designated in theology hyperdulia, that is dulia in an eminent degree. It is unfortunate that neither our own language nor the Latin possesses in its terminology the precision of the Greek. The word latria is never applied in any other sense than that of the incommunicable adoration which is due to God alone. But in English the words adore and worship are still sometimes used, and in the past were commonly so used, to mean also inferior species of religious veneration and even to express admiration or affection for persons living upon the earth. So David "adored" Jonathan. In like manner Miphiboseth "fell on his face and worshipped" David (2 Samuel 9:6).

Answer 9

There is a big difference between what individuals "claim", and what the Church accepts. The fact that those nuns were excommunicated should tell you that Rome is on the ball.
Please give me a link to that story.

Answer 10

Mary, in Catholicism, should have the same place as Venus in the ancient Roman religion.

Venus was the Goddess associated with Love, Beauty and Fertility. Mary, also associated with Love, Beauty and Fertiltiy in the ancient Christian religion, replaced Venus when the Romans replaced their old religion with the new one.

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