At least three times a day I find posts by Protestants asking us Catholics why we worship Mary. We don't. Why do people think we do? This is a serious question - I want to know where that idea is coming from...has a Catholic told you that? Did you read it in a Chic Tract? Did you read something in the Catechism that lead you to believe we worship Mary? Has a Catholic claimed that they didn't worship Mary in a way that lead you to believe that they really did?
Why would someone think that Catholics worship anything other than God?
IMO it is because this is what they have been indoctrinated to believe by family or religious leaders - people they love and/or respect. would you really want to admit that someone you love/respect is wrong?! no you would rather hold to your incorrect beliefs instead of listening to a stranger or even your own eyes.
i hope Marty posts the information about Martin Luther's comments about Mary..... they are to entreat Mary in the same fashion as Catholic.
I am Jewish and I find statues of Mary in Catholic churches which is against the Ten Commandments.
I was raised catholic, you're saying you only worship god? Now you know that's not true. You worship Jesus. And personally, if you wanted to worship Mary, I see nothing wrong with it. Talk:Blessed Virgin Mary (Roman Catholic) - Wikipedia, the free ::
That is an accusation of some protestant evangelical groups at the moment. promote the commonly-spread error that Catholics worship Mary as a goddess.
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BECAUSE YOU DO!!!
Catholics worship Mary as the appointed "Mother of God." I mean both you and protestants are wrong but hey continue arguing about the bible. It only proves to others how one book can be interpreted into thousands of ways and if it was the real word of god you wouldn't be able to do that ;)
Because I think people confuse the act of praying to as an act of worship. My understanding is that the saints and angels were to go betweens and messengers for God. The real worship and honoring is in how you live your day to day life and how you praise whatever god it is that you believe in.
When Catholics invoke Mary as a direct intercessor to God, and declare her immaculate conception, they are in fact elevating her above humanity and placing her one step below the godhead. Whether you want to call that "worship" is more a semantic issue than a question of practice; if one of the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster called upon the Italian Meatball ("Hail Meatball, full of grace!") then outside observers would consider the Meatball an object of worship. And so do outsiders perceive the invocations to Mary.
you say you don't worship Mary, but that you pray TO her and you ask her for things. I just don't understand that.
Sources eh? Big Fat EDIT:
See my source below...
But I have to ask this...Does Mary intercept prayers for your god and put them on holy post it notes on the heavenly refrigerator so your god can take a look at them when he returns from his heavenly trips? What are the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism?::
10 posts - Last post: Nov 15, 2004Catholics and Protestants worship THE SAME God. Catholics Do Not worship . Catholicism is Jesus + sacraments + Mary + the Pope + this and
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I think it may have something to do with praying to Mary for intercession when it is Jesus alone who intercedes on our behalf. 2008 February::
Do Catholics worship Mary? February 26th, 2008 · No Comments Personally, I’ ve encountered many protestants (and even some Catholics) that thought that
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Dec 27, 2008 And then the Protestants seem right because Catholics worship Mary . for Protestants arises not from a perceived worship of Mary I think,
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Bercause they do.
I also am a former catholic, & I too have seen it!
And that is not all they worship, as seen here:
http://missionary1954.deviantart.com/jou...
Because I was a catholic...........and I've seen it first hand.
They do.
Does the prayer "Hail Mary, full of grace..." ring a bell?
She is NOT TO BE worshipped!
Only Christ is to be worshipped
sorry Catholic worship the Holy Mother,we Pray to in the Pray Hal Mary, she is important in the Catholic Religion being that she was the Mother of Jesus ..so your both wrong
Does the veneration of saints take away from the worship of Christ?
There are several degrees of this worship:
if it is addressed directly to God, it is superior, absolute, supreme worship, or worship of adoration, or, according to the consecrated theological term, a worship of latria. This sovereign worship is due to God alone; addressed to a creature it would become idolatry. When worship is addressed only indirectly to God, that is, when its object is the veneration of martyrs, of angels, or of saints, it is a subordinate worship dependent on the first, and relative, in so far as it honours the creatures of God for their peculiar relations with Him; it is designated by theologians as the worship of dulia, a term denoting servitude, and implying, when used to signify our worship of distinguished servants of God, that their service to Him is their title to our veneration (cf. Chollet, loc. cit., col. 2407, and Bouquillon, Tractatus de virtute religionis, I, Bruges, 1880, 22 sq.). As the Blessed Virgin has a separate and absolutely supereminent rank among the saints, the worship paid to her is called hyperdulia (for the meaning and history of these terms see Suicer, Thesaurus ecclesiasticus, 1728).
I do not know why some are opposed to this definition as it clearly states that the worship is Christocentric but allow me to try to explain it further.
Throughout history the Church has given special honor to the Blessed Mother. The definition is an attempt to differentiate the differences in the way the blessed mother is venerated and the other Saints with the adoration we as Catholics have for the incarnate Word of God, the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Saints are revered with dulia which is human reverence and devotion given because of their intercession on behalf of us and is very similar to the reverence given to friends who pray for us in times of need.
The mother of God receives hyperdulia which is also human reverence and devotion but with a deeper respect for her closeness to her son in intercession for our prayers. All prayer, whether it comes from a saint or from the blessed mother on our behalf, is totally and absolutely dependent on Christ.
What one should try to understand is that Catholic devotion to the blessed mother does not take away from our adoration of Christ but instead gives our adoration a better focus. This is not like idol worship which changes one s focus from the true God but through imitation of her devotion we are focused on Him. Every saint by their life spent in devotion and service to God gives us encouragement and their prayers for us give us greater hope that we also will endure to final salvation as their example exemplifies.
In Christ
Fr. Joseph
Well, first and foremost, because many Protestants are told this from the time they're small children. It's certainly what I was told.
And once we have been told this, our observations seem to confirm it. I will give you two examples:
First, statues of Mary or any other saint up at the front of the church are a stumbling block to many Protestants (though most of us Lutherans do not have this problem specifically). For this to make sense, you need to think about the fact that most Protestants do not believe the Eucharist is actually Jesus.
When Protestants prepare to take Communion, what they see is a representation of Jesus, who though not presently visible, is our object of worship.
Then they visit or see a picture of a Catholic church, and they see a statue of Mary in a prominent position. They mentally process this as another instance of the same thing--a representation just as the bread and wine are a representation. Therefore, the assumption is automatically made that Mary is for you an object of worship.
Second, even if Protestants successfully wrap their minds around the fact that prayer is not worship, some of the specific prayers to Mary are still highly disturbing to us.
It might have something to do with the manner in which we are introduced to the idea of prayer to saints. Nothing in the conventional explanation we are given can prepare a Protestant for the words of the Salve Regina. To ask another Christian to pray for us is something that makes sense to most Protestants. But to refer to another Christian as our life, sweetness, and hope, and our advocate, and to ask that person for mercy in the context of our fallen nature--that's quite another matter.
I don't think Catholics worship Mary, but I do think the latter issue in particular is one that Catholics need to address when explaining your practices. It's certainly a big stumbling block for me personally.
The worshipping of Mary is only in the anti-Catholic people's imagination to justify their black propaganda against Catholicism.
There is much argument about the meaning of the word worship.
However, if you regard Mary as sinless, and any prayer is made to Mary for whatever reason, then these are regarded as heretical doctrines by Protestants.
As a former Catholic and now a evangelical Christian I believe it is because the Chatholic Church says that Mary was without sin.
People get this misinformation from their parents or ministers and think it's true. As you can see below, it does not matter how you explain the difference between worship and prayer, or how we do not worship statues but the Christ they represent, these ignorant fools will continue to believe the lies they've been fed. You and I KNOW we do not worship anyone or anything other than God. You just have to close your eyes and ears to this cr@p. There's nothing you can do about closed minds and lies, except pray for them.
Catholics have Mary's statues in the church.
it's so wrong.
Wow, I was hoping for some actual insight. Unfortunately you just got a load of the same ol' stuff.
In this country, where we are supposedly so "tolerant" it amazes me that so many feel quite comfortable telling others what they do and don't do, as if it is fact.
But saddest of all are those who start out with "I was Catholic..." what a shame. They carry a lot of the burden of responsibility for the misled and misinformed. They propagate a lie, based on their own misunderstanding. Unfortunately, so many Catholics were not properly catechized, add to that the worldly view that God wants us to be happy and would never ask us to live a life of sacrifice, and suffering, then throw in a little Bible fundamentalism...and you have an bad example of Cahtolicism in ex-Catholics.
We do not worship Mary, but we do believe her to be deserving of honor and love. We do pray to her, NEWS FLASH: Prayer does not equal worship! The word "pray" means to ask or petition. That is what we do. If you read the Gospels you will notice that many times a person came to Jesus asking that someone else be healed. Jesus would say in response "because of YOUR faith" that person has been healed. Think about that. That is intercession, another is healed because of the faith of the asker. This is what Mary does, through her prayers for us, her faith is added to ours so we may be healed.
The Protestant misunderstanding of the honor or Mary is their problem. As Catholics we know who we worship and who we honor. Mary herself said "all nations will call me blessed."
I don't know but i surely wanna hit on mary
she's hot
Do you pray to Mary?
I've seen Roman Catholic prayers addressed to Mary, asking her to make intercession between God and man. That's just wrong.
As Christians we are to pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, through the blood of Jesus, to God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit-period.
Not to saints, not to Mary, not to priests.
Because they have been misled by Satan into thinking that Catholics worship Mary. And many of them act as agents of Satan in spreading lies against the Chruch that Christ founded.
Preaching to the choir here, I am a cradle Catholic. I must have lived a very sheltered life because I never knew there was so much hatred, misguided ignorance and prejudice toward our faith. Sure back in the 1800's but surely these days people would have more information and more intelligence. So sad how some people have been taught lies throughout their lives and actually believe these horrible mistruths because they don't want to believe otherwise.
I would love for each of them to attend a Mass to actually hear our Nicene creed that is recited every Sunday at Mass. It is a basic run down of our beliefs and no where does it deem Mary as being equal to God. Indeed, Mary warrants just one line in the Creed ("He was born of the Virgin Mary"). Wouldn't more of the creed be dedicated to her if we believed in her as a deity?
How sad that some people are so strong in their prejudices they will not believe the truth of our Catholic Faith even if a million Catholics respond to your Yahoo Answers question.
Here is your answer.
2 reasons
1) They are ignorant of everything. Including the Bible, and Jewish law. (you can not know the bible if you do not know the Men who wrote it... and the were Jewish (If God wrote the bible, why isn't everyone a believer? If he did write it.... he apparently aint that perfect because it has loads of mistakes.))
As someone so pointedly remarked. There is a difference between praying and worshiping. Besides Praying to a saint does not happen that often. When it does it is for something little. Because it is disrespectful to harass An Almighty God with your little puny concerns. so the saints are like Gods Secretaries. They take care of the things he doesn't feel like dealing with. You know what they say about how It roles down hill. God is a very busy man, after all he has a cosmos to run, and it is doubtful the earth is his only little ant farm.
2) Some Catholics "Are" worshiping Mary.
The Virgin de Guadeloupe, is one of many bastardizations of Pagan Gods and Goddesses.
the catholics used to have a bad habit of taking local Gods, shinning them up, putting them in robes, plastering a cross on them, and calling them saints (Recently the church abolished a lot of saints that they found had no historical background of existence)(since a good percent of them are ours. we greatly thank them for that. they also renounced the crimes of Olaf the slime... or as some of you may know him "Saint" Olaf. I think he still holds Sainthood though. The Church doesn't want to set more precedents of changing its mind).
Sadly they were out of practice when the Spanish came to the new world. so they did something stupid and bastardized an important biblical character. the Virgin Mary. (Otherwise there would be a female saint already.)
Hispanic Catholicism is a very strange hybrid religion. Also seeing Mary in your egos seems to be a happening that happens around Mexico, and where Mexicans tend to live....
Not to mention it is just like the number 23. Its really all in your head. just like signs from God, premonitions, etc.
Sorry you got so many ignorant people answering your question
Yeah because we hear songs and read books about it. Its around....
I have been both catholic and protestant, it is seen by non catholics that you worship mary because you pray to her and have statues of her, so in a way you do worship mary.
Hmmm... I know several Catholics who pray to the Virgin Mary. If you are praying to anyone but Christ/God, then that is considered Worship. I also see many people tho have statues of Mary in or around their house. This is a form of Worship as well as idolatry. I know a gal who has a pendant with the image of the Virgin Mary that she wears all the time around her neck.
All that sounds like worship to me.
Jubilee on Earth
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Thou shall not bow down before any graven image, in heaven above, or the earth below.
They don't understand the great difference between "worship", which is reserved for God alone, and "prayer", which simply means communication.
I am a former Catholic... praying to someone is a form of worship..... we prayed to Mary as Catholics.... Catholics consider her a co-redeemer (she wasn't perfect, wasn't always a virgin and wasn't crucified for my sins and there is no biblical account of her ascension)..... and the term "Mother of God" is wayyyy out of line..... Just read the scriptures, and you can't go wrong.... Appreciate the honest inquiry....
look at a CATHOLIC BIBLE [ b/c when you guys broke off broke our church in 1063 you guys rewrote the bible ] look up Luke 1; 20-50 notice what the angel says when she see's Mary for the first time she says HAIL FAVORED ONE Report Abuse
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