Enjoy the discussion!
And what does the large majority of Catholics feel???
---In my last column I remarked that the surprise, for many Evangelical converts to the Catholic faith, is how much smaller Mary is to the Catholic than she is to the evangelical. For the evangelical, “the Catholic Mary” looms large as a kind of ur-goddess.---
I see. So, just don't worry about Mary. Mary not important. OK.
Mariaphobic Response Syndrome (commentary on Catholic devotion to the Virgin Mary)
Yawn.
I knew some folks like this a few years ago. They were part of a small Marian prayer group at my college and were completely obsessed with every Marian apparition that came along. They weren't very interested in Lourdes or even Fatima, but rather with more recent apparitions. None of these apparitions had been approved by the Church and most of them involved prophecies of chastisements and great miracles. I remember in the fall of 1999 being told by these people that because 2000 was a Jubilee year there would be a huge miracle in March. In March of 2000 some sort of sign was supposed to appear in the sky and everyone in the world would see it and suddenly be converted or something like that. March of 2000 came and went and no such miracle occurred. This didn't seem to bother these people; they just latched onto another apparition.
What really surprised and bothered me was how these people showed such a complete lack of discernment and obedience to the Church. Otherwise they were very orthodox and they really liked Pope John Paul II. But when it came to the matter of apparitions, all their orthodoxy and obedience went out the window. They didn't even see the contradiction; a rational and reasoned approach to life was not their forte, to say the least.