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Sadly, true. I love much about the Catholic Church, but this is the central issue that has kept me from joining it. I have had many conversations with Catholics who deny up and down that they "worship" Mary and yet, just as you showed here, in printing that prayer from Benedict XVI, it's clear that Catholics, in many cases, do worship Mary. (At least what would be "worship" by any Biblical definition)

I think many of them do it without even recognizing fully that they're doing it. That's my experience in talking with them about it. That's why it's such a dangerous doctrine to support in the Church. The average lay person around the world cannot possibly separate veneration from adoration in their mind or heart, in most cases, I would think. It's quite easy to cross the line - and Benedict's prayer shows that.

Mary doesn't "lead us" to Jesus. She isn't "mediator" of anything. This is completely without support anywhere in Scripture and is solely an invention of the Church (and it's a late, medieval invention, too, it has no basis in the tradition or practice the early Church). All Mary can do is act as an example of someone's submission to God's will and responding positively to his grace. But Scripture clearly says that there is one mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy), and Hebrews lays it out too, that Jesus is our great high priest and is the sole mediator between man and God. We don't need any mediator other than Christ - no priests, no saints, no one but Jesus.

Which prayer of Benedict XVI are you talking about?

Mary doesn't "lead us" to Jesus.

I beg to differ.

This is completely without support anywhere in Scripture and is solely an invention of the Church (and it's a late, medieval invention, too, it has no basis in the tradition or practice the early Church).

It's not any more "medieval" than the Council of Nicea is "medieval."

From Mary in the Early Church

Just as Eve, wife of Adam, yet still a virgin, became by her disobedience the cause of death for herself and the whole human race, so Mary, too, espoused yet a Virgin, became by her obedience the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race.... And so it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by Mary's obedience. For what the virgin Eve bound fast by her refusal to believe, this the Virgin Mary unbound by her belief.
-St. Irenaeus of Lyon (d. 202)

From Saint Ephrem

Thou alone, O Lord and Thy mother are they who in every respect are wholly beautiful; for there is no spot in Thee, O Lord, nor any stain in Thy mother.
-St. Ephrem (d. 373)