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I believe you'll find in Matt 9&14 and in Mark 6 that just touching the hem of His garment could heal. I doubt you will find a "rose bush" able to do that...

No, you totally missed Havoc's point. The object didn't heal and can't heal. Only God through our faith can. You misplace the act of God to an object thus taking something holy, like a miracle from God and corrupting it to a "magic act" by attributing it to a mere object (even a man-made object!).

Read the accounts again. I believe one of them has Jesus refering to the women's faith, but the faith refered to appears to be that merely touching the hem of His garment would heal her. There can be no doubt that it is always Jesus who "supplies the power" if you will, but God has always used inanimate objects that represent Him or some aspect of Him to exhibit his power (The ark comes to mind).

I think you will also find examples in Scripture of people who were healed without faith (or because of the faith of others). We should not try place limits on the Lord by trying to fit Him into logical boxes that we can grasp with our human wisdom.

It has always amazed me that some people would rather have a football jersey that was sweated in by some million dollar jock than a new jersey (worth more unwashed of course), but fail to understand a desire to be in the presense of the sacred. If you visit the Holy Land (wear a bullet-proof vest) would you not be in total awe of actually walking on ground that you know your Savior tread? (maybe that's an advantage the Mormons have over us... they think he came here in the flesh, so they can save on travel costs:o)

I suspected that the mistake was largely that the poster assumed that the point supported the Catholic position on Mary (It did, but not convincingly) and therefore the statement must be false.

I would claim that the statement is true but does not bear directly on the discussion at hand.

I further suspect that there is a natural Protestant propensity to avoid such items. Let's face it... During the medieval period, there were supposed "sacred relics" floating all over Europe (just about every town had the "finger bone of the apostle Paul" or some such) most of which could not possibly be accurate. Such adoration could come much closer to actual idolatry than any icons or artwork you may find offensive today.