Posted on 07/28/2006 6:45:14 PM PDT by sionnsar
***Sorry. But I have many RC friends who tell me forthrightly that they do worship Mary in a way with their prayers because they see her as being worthy of worship due to her supposedly sinless nature.***
Sorry dangus, whatever you want to call the role of Mary in the RC church, it certainly looks like worship to Proddies and to many people inside the RC church.
If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck....
This is Wicca, pure and simple.
Wicca worships the female trinity - Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The phrase "Blessed be" is the dead giveaway - it ends most Wiccan "prayers" and is the more formal form of bidding farewell. This alone should be enough to expel the US Episcopalians from the worldwide Episcopalian church.
"Do you really believe that Mary, a godly woman, would accept any such title that draws attention to her and away from Her Son, her savior and the Savior of all whom the Father shall redeem thought His sacrifice, sanctification, intercession and merit?"
Very good question.
I have one observation: the majority of threads by Catholics are about Mary or the Pope or something other than scripture and Jesus. I find that interesting.
These poor souls are lost.
I live in San Francisco (born and bred AND Catholic) and have watched Grace Cathedral descend from its lofty position as THE Episcopalian center in the Bay Area to the Labyrinth of the Lost.
It started back in the 80's, if I recall correctly, with the "inclusion" of homosexuals into their fold as normal people. There have been a series of openly homosexual pastors (both genders, some living with same sex partners) there who have enlarged on that theme ad nauseum. Added to that was the woman-thing, where God is "She" and such.
Their latest silliness is a meditation liturgy.
It's hard to miss it. They have a LARGE banner (in the traditional Episcopalian colors) advertising their latest silliness strung across the church. I go to my club six times a week and see it as I drive past.
Sidenote: one of our traditional Lutheran Churches is in the full God-is-a-woman thing, offering all (also a big banner with a www url address) to worship Her with a she-rosary.
Too many nouveau San Franciscans worship at the House of Relative Morality, eating their Sunday Bread of Life at the House of Bagels, drinking the Blood of Salvation from Starbucks -- Cafe Latte. I have watched this descent for four decades.
I attended a Bat Mitzvah once where the ritual was NEW Jewish, with all latest non-sexual nomenclature ruled. Two examples: God was not the Father but a neuter force ("Cosmos") and the words "right hand of the Lord" were eliminated because it shamed left-handed people.
It's ESPECIALLY sad to see the Episcopalians and Lutherans stray so far from the path of Christian worship. They were the closest to the Catholic faith.
Martin Luther must be rolling in his grave. What havoc he wrecked with his protests. What hell he started. Same with Henry VIII. Both were simply too arrogant to do it any other way, one supposes.
Pardon my butting in.
Good observation, at least on the free republic.
What you say is probably true where there are mixtures of Christian denominations. The Pope and Mary USUALLY are the greatest sources of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants and therefore are the source of the majority of threads -- discussion/disagreement.
There aren't too many disagreements on Jesus or Scripture, thus, few threads on them.
Back in Marin Luther's and Henry VIII's days, the sources of disagreement were, no doubt, different. Since then, many differences have been ironed out or become moot, so what remains are those sticky matters of Mary veneration and Papal authority (Upon this rock I will built My church).
I was at St. Peter's this summer. His bones are there. The small casket is right there for all humans to see. Hard to fathom -- the bones of the first pope, Simon Peter, the man who knew Our Savior so well. It was very moving.
A "she-rosary"??? Just when you think they can't get any more ridiculous. And of course they obviously have no idea what the Rosary is, anyway, or they'd know how silly they were being.
Yes, SF is in very sad shape spiritually. Unfortunately, the Catholic churches got pretty flaky too, and having the confused Archbishop Quinn in charge certainly didn't help. Levada didn't seem to accomplish a lot, either.
Do you think the new Archbishop is going to improve things?
(When I am in SF, I often go to Our Lady of Fatima, the Byzantine rite Catholic church on Lake Street, just to avoid the flakiness.)
>> It was unnecessary because scripture did not declare it despite considerable other info about Mary. <<
"Who am I that the mother of my LORD should come to visit me?" -- ELizabeth, in the Gospel of St. Luke.
The word, "LORD" here is even capitalized in many bibles, because it was understood that LORD=YHWH,
>> But the first great wave of heresy had already passed before this Mother Of God business was promulgated. <<
We know it was already promulgated by the latter part of the 2nd century. We also know that we would only SEE it AFTER the heresy was dealt with. We also know that without having access to a 2nd century lexus/nexus database, decades could pass after promulgation before we saw it. Lastly, we know that counter-trinitarian concepts popped up freuqntly until the end of the 5th century, and are still quite common in Pentecostal churches.
"BTW, my Catholic neighbor mentioned to me on the phone that she got more rain than me a few nights ago by going out and shaking her rosary beads at the storm clouds. I retorted that this was unfair to us humble Baptists and we might retaliate by buying ourselves some groovy "love beads" so we wouldn't be defenseless when Rome's followers try to hog the rain."
____________________________________
Boy, that's great!
I needed to start the day with a smile.
Our former priest went to seminary with a lot of women in the early stages of the push for women priests (I have no problem with women priests but all of the early ones seemed to be more political and feminist than they were spiritual or with any kind of real calling.)
Anyway, he really disliked them...they had a lot of man hate. I told him they would probably remove Jesus from the church if they could because he was a man.
Apparently, they did. They gave him a sex change.
The daily Mass readings threads have Scripture in them. Any article about the Eucharist mentions Our Lord, since Catholics believe that Christ's Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, is present in that sacrament. Any article about the Pope is likeley to mention the Pope talking about Our Lord. Finally, any article that mentions Mary is in all liklihood going to mention Jesus, because she is His mother.
Jerimiah 7:17 Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
With all due respect and sincerity, I'd bet that, if given twenty-four uninterrupted hours, I could find at least one Catholic FReeper who has publicly said/done otherwise, in the last year alone.
I know what you're trying to say, and while I still strongly disagree with the practice overall, those distinctions are not lost on me, and I will be mindful of what you've described regarding your own practices. Yours would be the route I'd follow should I ever swim the Tiber. But in mine and others' experiences, not every Catholic is as cautious as you are. Some practice, and even encourage, full-blown idolatry and IMO blasphemy re Mary, while remaining in full communion with Mother Church.
Sorry dangus, whatever you want to call the role of Mary in the RC church, it certainly looks like worship to Proddies and to many people inside the RC church.
Ditto. What would Moses say?
The Pope and Mary USUALLY are the greatest sources of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants and therefore are the source of the majority of threads -- discussion/disagreement.. . .
Back in Marin Luther's and Henry VIII's days, the sources of disagreement were, no doubt, different. Since then, many differences have been ironed out or become moot, so what remains are those sticky matters of Mary veneration and Papal authority (Upon this rock I will built My church)
Uhhh.... the justification by faith thing?
You probably can, but what would this prove other than that there are Catholics who misunderstand what the Church teaches? The Church is quite glad to correct those who promote the excesses and outright idolatry that you mention. (The now-suspended Fr. Nicholas Gruner of The Fatima Crusader fame is a fine example.) And good, knowledgeable Catholics should do likewise in correcting their brethren.
The differences between dulia, hyperdulia, and latria have been explained on these forums numerous times. I'm glad that you acknowledge that you understand the distinctions (even if you don't necessarily agree). I just hope that others do likewise.
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