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To: Petronski
Some non-Catholics not only distrust reason but also have a kind of touching faith in a kind of superstitious nominalism.

And what do I mean by that? An extreme example is the Jehovah's Witnesses who think that the very shape of a cross makes God angry. They argue that Jesus was not crucified but "impaled", by which they seem to mean not by what most of us mean by "impale" — to be run through, usually lengthwise, by a stake — but suspended from a stake in the ground. So they say that the mere use of a cross is bad because some pagans used that shape in their worship or syumbolism or somesuch. The fact that subsequent generations have made mush of a cross in complete and sincere ignorance or rejection of any possible pagan meaning cuts no ice with them. The cross shape is BAD.

So because some pagans had a notion of a queen of heaven who was probably a fertility-mystery figure, blending Isis, Hera and Aphrodite, (Lewis has a fine such goddess in Til We Have Faces), therefore the very phrase "Queen of Heaven" must not be used in any sense at all, even if it means to denote the Mother of our Lord who by His act was given great honor in heaven.It's a kind of irrational superstition and the sort of fearfulness from which our Lord came to set us free. We celebrate the far beyond our imagining mercy of Jesus and they mistake us for worshippers of some fertility goddess because we say something which sounds like something those other people said.

371 posted on 07/27/2008 1:12:01 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.)
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To: Mad Dawg

Precisely put, brother. I wish I’d written it.


377 posted on 07/27/2008 1:14:12 PM PDT by Petronski (Scripture & Tradition must be accepted & honored w/equal sentiments of devotion & reverence. CCC 82)
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To: Mad Dawg
Mary is not the "Queen of heaven."

And to believe such a lie leaves one vulnerable to believing other lies, like Mary supposedly being born without the stain of original sin or Mary being bodily assumed into heaven, or Mary being a mediator between God and men when Christ is the only mediator.

Your tag illustrates this pitfall perfectly.

Flee from idolatry.

405 posted on 07/27/2008 1:36:17 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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