Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Sorry to hi-jack a thread, if that's what this amounts to, but this is an important point I would like to make:
Does everyone see how quickly idolatry descends? Churches which accuse the Catholic Church of idolatry should note:
The Catholic Church was around hundreds of years before it had to start defending itself against accusations of idolatry from Protestants.
In all those hundreds of years, never, not once, ever, has any Catholic used the word, "worship" to describe his relationship with the Blessed Mother of God, who is Mary. NEVER! Never has a Catholic prayer asked the Blessed Mother for forgiveness. NEVER! We ask the Blessed Mother to pray for us that we be kept from sin. It's not that the Church hasn't done these things because they'd make us look bad to Protestants. We do loads of stuff that blow Protestants' minds. FREQUENTLY.
We frequently pray to the Blessed Mother (MARY!) to pray for us that we may not sin.
We NEVER pray to the Blessed Mother to forgive us our sins, even though we ask freinds, the priest, etc. (We ask forgiveness from those we hurt, or priests, who represent the Church. We ask Christ alone for divine forgiveness. We do not ask Mary because we have not sinned against her, and she does not grant the forgiveness that God grants; she can only pray for us, as can saints and our earthly beloved.)
Our prayers say we venerate Mary.
We never adore Mary, or that we worship her.
No Catholic has EVER said that Mary is divine, god, or all-powerful.
I'm not saying the Pope has never approved such things. I'm saying they have never occured, not once, never.
Some Protestants may not recognize the distinctions between these things, but if there were no distinctions, why have some happened so frequently, and others never happened?