Catholics, do all the "questions" about worshipping Mary today make you want to leave the Church?

Question

Nope. Me, either.

Actually, I'm just feeling charitable -- thought I'd give the knee-jerk Maryphobes, Catholic-bashers, and freelance Bible interpreters another opportunity to spout off about this. Just in case they didn't get it out of their systems today.

One of our Catholic brothers answered the umpteenth "question" on this with an observation I liked: If it were true that the Church taught WORSHIP of Mary, he'd be the first one out the door. And I'd be right behind him.

The floor is yours, kids -- Catholic, non-Catholic, anyone. But I'm reserving "best answer" for the anti-Catholic who actually tells us something about this we haven't heard 10,000 times before.

Okay, so the real reason I asked was to provide a little Catholic "breather" in between battles on an unusually intense "Mary" day even for R&S ... which most of you already figured out. I knew most of the bashers wouldn't bother answering.

AMDG, you'll get honorable mention. :)

Isabella, in looking back over some of my answers I think perhaps I'd better read those verses a little more often, myself.

Michael ... what, you mean just today? Wow. :) Well, happy protesting -- just remember, the door is open if you ever decide to come back home. Peace be with you.

Answer 1

When people don't have a clue they listen to "sound-bites" and usually come to inaccurate conclusions.

This applies to all religions from the Muslims and the Virgins....to Catholics not believing in the Bible.

Education is priceless.

Answer 2

It isn't that Catholics worship Mary, but they give the impression and appearance that they worship Mary. When a person sees the Pope kneel down on live television before a statue of Mary and spend time in prayer, that is a very strong impression that leads me to believe that he is, indeed, worshiping Mary. I know and recognize that Catholics do _not_ worship Mary, but the appearance that they do is hard to overcome. And that is why it is very easy to make a statement that Roman Catholics worship Mary. If the Catholics were smart, they would not express their religion is such a deceptive manner (and it is deceiving, otherwise, why would I make the statement that it sure looks like worship to me?). TDs expected from the Catholics Added: It doesn't matter what you asked for (and no, I don't know of any place in the Catechism where it says that Catholics are to worship Mary). I'm still left with that impression from observation.

Answer 3

Well, it doesn't make me want to leave the Church -- but it makes me want to just not talk to non-Catholics about it any more...And what's more - whenever I tell a non-Catholic that I'm Catholic, more times than not, I get barragged with questions about Mary and several other things (the Pope, Eucharist, Church Tradition, yada yada yada) as if I have all the "Official" Vatican answers! I don't. I'm just struggling along like the rest of us. And honestly, I did consider finding a different non-Roman-Catholic community to join but found none that honor and remember the richness of the whole Christian history and heritage as does the Roman Catholic Church...
So yah I'm tired of assumptions being laid on me in the form of "questions" that are really thinly veiled Catholic-Bashing. More tired than I am even of the more hysterical-illogical ladies that can be found among members of the Rosary Societies and any number of other Marian groups within the Roman Catholic communities...
What we have to remind ourselves is that the Universal Church (Roman Catholic as well as all the other denominations) is full of "sinners" of which I'm one - if it were not so, it wouldn't be so aggravating! LOL And if it were not so, we would not need salvation or redemption or even God.

And the most important thing to remember is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

-M

Answer 4

Whenever someone accuses us of worshipping Mary, I always give my stock answer:

I tell them to go to a Catholic Mass -- the highest point of Catholic worship -- sometime. They'll find that in the Mass, Mary is barely mentioned at all, and never in a way that can reasonably construed as worship.

God, meanwhile, is mentioned in Mass plenty of times.

..

Answer 5

Whoever said he would be the first out the door, he would have to beat millions more of us Catholics in leaving. The facts are that Catholics do not worship the blessed mother, never have and never will. One has to be a total idiot to make such a claim or an egregious liar.

In Christ
Fr. Joseph

Answer 6

+PAX

No, questions don't bother me, name calling doesn't bother me, nothing bothers me...as St. Teresa said, "don't be bothered." So I'm not. I am confident in my love of my most precious Jesus, God Almighty and the Holy Spirit.

Perception is reality and until people learn to form their own opinions by doing their own research instead of letting someone else think for them, the continued questioning and accusations will continue long after I'm dust.

I have other things to do than worry about Catholic bashing; such as the Lord's business.

In His love,
j

Answer 7

The Roman catholic church is all about punishment, no tolerance, or understanding, and all the "good" Roman Catholic sheep are taught to never question anything especially their religion they are brainwashed into believing. Moronism (Mormonism) is the same way but it's a cult.

Canonization of Popes in the Church of Rome strikes me as simply a reprise of the practice of deification of Caesars in ancient Imperial Rome.

After the collapse of the Republic, imperial Caesars became routinely added to the pantheon of Roman gods (usually after the politician in question was safely dead), making them available for worship by the populous. Certainly, it added to the authority of sitting Caesars, since by implication they were potential gods themselves. Small wonder, it became a custom of the "old boys club" of Caesars.

A similar custom seems to be emerging within the papacy--declare your predecessor a saint, and your successor will show you the same courtesy after you pass). God is too distracted with all His godly doings to be bothered with identifying saints to the living--so He leaves it to the Church, his personal secretary, to do so on his behalf (after the candidate has passed, and no longer potentially threatens the hierarchy, of course).

This latest papal canonization is exposing a long-concealed conceit of the Church--that it prefers to think that it can elevate someone into sainthood, more than merely diagnose that someone is a saint. This became clear when the criteria for recognizing someone as a saint were openly set aside in the present case (in the past, conformity to the criteria was simply fabricated, so the conceit could remain concealed).

So, it is that conceit itself, as well as the moldering Pope, that is being elevated.

Of course, this will not concern the pious laity. They're just happy to have another saint to petition to intercede with God on their behalf. The laity might be gullible, but it is always practical.

The notion of "saint" among Catholics is a reinvention, it seems to me, of the old Roman notion of demigods (meaning, in this case, lesser gods).

The human individual who is regarded as having attained this distinction has been adjudged to have achieved such a high order of holiness that they merit worship, much as if they were gods themselves. Initially, discussion about sainthood was over how to diagnose the condition, and the conversation was open to reasoned debate (usually between scholars, both secular and religious). But it was not long before discussion of the issue was seized as the exclusive prerogative of the priesthood. The question ceased to be about diagnostics, and became about the range of the power and privilege of the priesthood - in other words, it became less a matter of recognizing merit, than of awarding merit.

In modern usage, the term has become a facile honorific. Anyone who leads a reasonably ethical life, and is thought so highly of that they are idolized, is sometimes, carelessly, described as saintly. The question of whether any of the individuals pictured are deserving of worship is ludicrous. Certainly none of them are any more deserving than anyone else (in fact, I would argue that no being, natural or supernatural, is deserving of our self-abasing ourselves).

The modern day Roman Catholic church has nothing to do with actual Christianity and instead has more in common with the Ancient Roman religion.

The majority of Roman Catholics around the world who have any sort of intelligence have left the Roman Catholic church in droves and became spiritual, found a new faith, or become Atheist or Agnostic. These intelligent people know how to think for themselves, and know that the Roman Catholic church has been rotten to the core for centuries and still is today.

Answer 8

Nope not at all. In fact all the bashing of the Catholic Church just makes me embrace Jesus's TRUE CHURCH even more.


Praise be to God!!!

Answer 9

LOL......I knew you were joking.



I think I'm done answering these pathetic questions that are asked over and over again.
I have come to the conclusion that we Catholics should just keep Mary to ourselves. We've tried to share our answers, but it seems to be useless. I have seen knowledgeable answers from Atheists, but not from these blinded souls that have it in their hearts to condemn and judge other religions and non-religious people.

If they are such sola scriptura, then they need to focus on St James:


Epistle Of Saint James
Chapter 1

19 You know, my dearest brethren. And let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger. 20 For the anger of man worketh not the justice of God.

23 For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass.
24 For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was.
25 But he that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty, and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work; this man shall be blessed in his deed.
26 And if any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart


Love one another !

Answer 10

no way! nothing can make me leave the Church unless Christ Himself said so.

no Mary-worshipping is happening in the Catholic Church contrary to popular beliefs among the ignorants.