Do people in the Catholic Church really pray to and worship Mary?

Question

No jokes please. This is a honest question so please only honest answers.

Answer 1

Talk to (pray), yes.

Worship, no.

Catholics share the belief in the Communion of Saints with many other Christians, including the Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Episcopal, and Methodist Churches.

The Communion of Saints is the belief where all saints are intimately related in the Body of Christ, a family. When you die and go to heaven, you do not leave this family.

Everyone in heaven or on their way to heaven are saints, you, me, my deceased grandmother, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II.

As part of this family, you may ask your family and friends living here on earth to pray for you. Or, you may also ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Andrew, or your deceased grandmother living in heaven to pray for you.

Prayer to saints in heaven is simple communication, not worship.

Asking others to pray for you whether your loved ones on Earth or your loved ones in heaven is always optional.

For more information, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, section 946 and following: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt3art9p5.htm#946

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

The interesting point about this question: all of the Catholics say clearly the answer is no, we don't worship Mary, we merely ask for her to pray for us. All of the people of the opposite opinion are not Catholics. This is one of the more common anti-Catholic slanders. For some reason, people who aren't Catholic feel the need to manufacture reasons to disagree with Catholic doctrine. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are actual points of Catholic doctrine that some people disagree with, but this isn't one of them.
The 3 most common anti-Catholic bogus ideas I run into:
1. Catholics worship Mary - no we don't. Don't accept the word of someone who isn't Catholic on this one, worship is reserved for the holy Trinity.
2. Catholics believe in salvation through works. No, the doctrine is that we (and everyone who is saved, our doctrine is that you don;t have to be Catholic to be saved) are saved only through the grace of Christ, who died for our sins. Until he opened the doors of heaven for us, nobody was getting through.
3. Catholics don't accept Christ as their personal savior. Huh? Catholics accept Christ as both the universal and personal savior. Their is no other source of grace other than the God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the three in one God.

Answer 3

Pray to, yes. Worship, no.

To a Catholic, prayer is simply talking to someone. It's like this song by my favorite band, The Choir. The song is addressed to a close friend of theirs who had died. It is a very light-hearted song, but at one point a request is made of their friend: The song says, "Give Jesus a kiss for us."

To a Catholic, praying to Mary is *exactly* the same thing. They're merely talking to someone they love, who is now with Jesus, and so they will talk to her about things they're going through, and ask her to pray for them. Protestants raise various objections to this, and some of those objections have merit; but merely talking to Mary and asking her to pray for you does not constitute worship.

Answer 4

There are two sorts of Catholics. Most are very ignorant, uneducated, poor people, who don't come to a place such as this. They no doubt believe that Mary can hear them, because they believe the evil cult leaders who tell them that they can be heard by Mary. Whether they actually worship Mary is a matter of opinion, and varies with the individual, but anyone who states that no Catholic worships Mary is without question a liar. The Roman cult, with its extravagant prayers (see example below), processions, statues, candle-lighting and other paraphernalia make Mary worship extremely easy, if not inevitable.

Why do the wicked provide this invented 'Mary' for the masses? So that they will not get forgiveness, complete forgiveness, from Jesus directly. (It ties in with eternal postponement of forgiveness in their pagan 'Mass'.) That would give honest people the confidence and boldness to stand up to these wicked people, and expose the dark practices they want to keep secret.

There is not the smallest justification in supposing that Mary has any more ability to answer prayer than anyone else. If lying was a criminal offence, every Catholic priest would get a life sentence (or execution), because Mary's ability to get God's ear is founded on just _one_ word in Luke's gospel, which even they themselves have to admit is incorrectly translated! So all these poor people are as likely to be praying to the wall, utterly wasting their time. (They never get their prayers answered anyway.)

It is by no means certain that Mary was even a Christian. There is a verse that indicates strongly that she rejected Jesus as saviour, but this is never translated properly by the wicked people who print Bibles, even Prot ones.

'Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother, 'See, this one [Jesus] is set for the falling and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign spoken against (and a sword will pass through your own soul also) — so that the secret attitudes of many hearts may be revealed.' Lk 2:34-35

This is prophecy of Mary's _rejection_ of Jesus as Saviour, despite the good words she had spoken before he was born. She had nothing good to say about Jesus after he was born, and indeed was rebuked by him for attempting to interfere in his ministry at Cana.

Romanists say that the sword mentioned is the 'sword' of seeing her sin die, but that is nothing like the context, and Jesus totally rejected the importance of family ties anyway, as is well known.

So nobody can talk to Mary, and no Christian, who talks with Jesus as his/her dear friend, closer than a brother, all the time, would even dream of doing so.
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Answer 5

I'm a former Catholic who recently went to a Catholic mass for a family occasion. The priest at one point nodded to a statue of Mary on the alter and said for us to pray to Mary our mother for something or another. It blew me away. The Mary statue and the cross were in the center of the alter.

Answer 6

@yogodan... you speak as if Mary had say in whether Jesus died for our sins or not, What Jesus did was decided before Mary was in existence, it had nothing to do with her accepting it, it was ALL to do with Jesus.

@joseph... Mary was blessed, does mean she was to be worshipped, tell me a prophet in the bible that wasn't blessed, why don't you hail them too? hey im blessed too yet i deserve no worship, plus she long left the earth.....

Yes Catholics worship Mary, though some try to sugar coat it, They seem to believe that Mary is without sin!!!, they seem to believe that she was born perfect, meaning Jesus wasn't the only one who never sinned. and all that Queen of heaven stuff just sickens me, while reading the bible i saw a verse that spoke of a false religion that prays to a so called queen of heaven.. is that you?

I wish all Catholics find Jesus and Jesus ALONE, also i do believe that there are some truly saved people in the catholic church and many lost souls, the same applies to protestant churches.

Only if Catholics would pick up a bible and follow it.


@Our Little Princess... PLEASE show me ONE place in the bible where Mary is at the left or right hand of God. JUST 1 VERSE is all i need. Because even the 12 apostles asked this of themselves and Jesus never give them a clear Yes or No. Through this i HOPE you learn its all nonsense conjured up in the mind of some man.

btw Mary is mother of the VESSEL Jesus came down into, she is NOT the mother of God. also Jesus said anyone who accepts me is my mother, father, brother etc.

Answer 7

To begin with God warns before one even starts to worship an image to NOT EVEN MAKE ONE!
Exodus 20:4
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;

Answer 8

Sure the catholic church really does believe in the intercessory powers of Mary and do pray to her. she did know that her only son would be condemned to death and still did accept the plan of the almighty to provide mankind with an example of supreme sacrifice without complaining. this is the significance of Mary and the reason to seek the intercession of mary

Answer 9

that is just another lie often thrown everywhere by these rabid fundamentalist protestants against Catholicism, and unfortunately believed by many ingorants despite of very good and honest answers from the learned and educated Catholics.

here's a link that might clear things to you (hopefully you'd be open-minded and not biased while reading this article): http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15459a.htm

Answer 10

no.

look at the hail mary,the prayer we allegadly pray to mary, virtually every part of this prayer is found in the bible.

no catholic to my knowlage has ever worshiped her