Which equal more construing MARY TO BE EQUAL TO GOD. It flows out of RC's fingers in various actions and sentences in spite of declarations otherwise. Clearly, it's a deeply held UNBiblical belief.
What it looks like from here is that not understanding the role of Mary in our salvation leads to faulty Christology, faulty ecclesiology, and faulty understanding of the role of Scripture and personal experience in God's self-disclosure, and an unwitting sort of historical chauvinism which imagines each Christian as a kind of community-deprived Robinson Crusoe.
I could have typed that all in big letters and it would be no more (and no less) true than it is in small letters. Some people think that when tricky things about which emotions run high are discussed the way to proceed is to heighten and worsen the emotional tension and to mock and disparage and accuse one's opponents. Having seen religion, especially of the charismatic kind, serve as the refuge of first resort for personality disorders, affective disorders, and frank psychosis, and as the tool and environment of people with an unbridled need to control, I run as fast as I can the other way when I detect any hint of that kind of thing.
If mariolatry flows out of RC fingers, then where do the child abusing, psychotic, and clinically depressed people who were "charismatics" before they were institutionalized come from? (I'm talking here about cases I've been involved with, back in the pastoral day, not rumors but facts.)
Shall we say, "By their fruits shall we know them"? The incestuous alcoholic, the child sodomizer, the depressed protestant cleric who commits adultery, all of them speaking in tongues, all of them claiming unique spiritual discernment and describing themselves as charismatics. AND NOT ONCE have I on this forum, or any other, used big colored letters and blanket condemnations to go after or mock charismatics.
I know that that kind of spirituality is deeply personal to those who practice it, and I am sensitive to that. I am pretty certain that neither mockery, blanket condemnation, nor big colored letters will impress any lurker of sense, or open the mind or heart of my fellow contenders.
The fact is, "lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds," and the corruption of good spirituality is an evil thing. But to condemn all lilies because the festering ones smell really really bad is, well, stupid. There are good, wise, and holy charismatics. There are good wise and holy people devoted to our lady. There are vicious, corrupt, insight-averse, manipulative and fundamentally dishonest people who speak in tongues, pray the rosary, and practice psychology. I condemn none of those practices because of their corruption.
It is Satan, not our Lord, who sees our failures and accuses man before God because of our sinfulness, seeing only the sin and not the nobility of God's creation. Our Lord establishes and then restores and maintains good, and flowers spring up where He walks. And until I die, despite the colorful appeals to the lurkers, the grandstanding posts, and the unmerited end-zone dances, I will thank Him for what He has done, does, and will do, and I will be devoted to His Mother. I have taken the hits, the lies, the personal assaults, the colored letters, the guffaws, of those who despise her, and I am only more devoted to her -- and by her intercession I remain open, or try to, to those whose professed devotion to Jesus leads them to condemn me and my fellows for what they manifestly do not understand.
If Catholics believed what you CLAIM we do, then you'd be correct.
Regards
Shh. Think happy thoughts.
I give annalex credit for being willing to say it. At least he has made it clear how they view Mary and what they truly mean by Co-Remptrix, Queen of Heaven, etc.
As Christians all we can do is keep pointing out the error and pray for them to turn away from this path.
Jer. 44:16-17 "As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you! But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven,..."
Luke 11:27-28 "....Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You! But he said, More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it."
1Cor. 10:14 "Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry."
1Tim. 2:5 "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,"
Scripture is very clear, it is about JESUS and no one stands between us and JESUS.