Do Catholics Really Worship the Virgin Mary?

Editor’s Note: It is my pleasure to reintroduce my great-grandfather Hugo Klapproth and his “new” book, Letters to a Protestant Friend (Available Here). Full disclosure: The book is new only to English-speaking readers living 130 years after it was published in the original German here in St. Paul, Minnesota. Apart from being a thoughtful historical sketch, this little book also makes a considerable contribution to Catholic apologetics. As a convert from Lutheranism and a professional newspaper editor, Hugo Klapproth’s apologetical arguments to his Lutheran friend are some of the most effective I have ever read. Mary “worship,” Faith alone, sola scriptura, the papacy, the “non-biblical” roots of purgatory, and the Sacrament of Confession—all the go-to Protestant arguments are refuted with expert biblical exegesis, considerable historical acumen, and the patient reproach of one old friend to another. Here, then, is an excerpt from Chapter 3 on Mary and Papal Infallibility. MJM

Dear D.,

I now come to the “deification of man in the Catholic cult of Mary and in that of the Saints.” To deify someone doubtless means to place him on the same level as God, to bestow divine honors to him, to adore him. Do you really think that we Catholics do not know the First Commandment?

Honestly, that means that if one charges us with divinizing Mary and the saints, we Catholic not only deny all of Christianity, but that we also degrade ourselves in the sight of the Jews and the Moslems. Admittedly, we venerate her, and we venerate them, but in the measure that God Himself cherishes the both of them.

If an ordinary mother, whose son is respected and has become famous through heroic deeds which he earned on behalf of the well-being of his fellow citizens and his Fatherland, and whose mother is therefore not permitted to be mocked or denigrated or blasphemed or reviled, how much more has Mary earned that highest honor and distinction?

Above all, with respect to Mary, it should indeed be clear to every Bible-believing Protestant that God did not cherish anyone among all his creatures more than He cherished her. This should be obvious. The fact that this actually is not the case is proven, as so often, by the irreverent manner in which Mary is spoken of in the pages of Protestant books and even from orthodox Protestant pulpits.

A clear-seeing Protestant says when addressing this point:

There is a relationship of consistent flight from the Mother of God, a constant fear of her, or of even uttering but a word of the greeting that the Eternal Father sent to her through the mouth of an angel, thereby issuing the first blow against the old curse separating us from Him and His love. We are permitted to call out an ave pia anima as often as we want to any other human person who has gone before us to our eternal home, but not to the Mother of Christ, because that would be—Catholic! (Dietlein, Evang. Ave Maria, Halle, 1863, VII).

I can assure you that the Protestant disrespect for Mary alone would now be sufficient to prove to me that Protestantism cannot be the religion of Jesus Christ. “Every heresy has always ended with a contempt for the Virgin” (Hettinger, Apol., Freiburg, 1869, II, 1, 529).

No, whoever sees and honors the Bible as the true Word of God must look upon and honor in Mary that “blessed among women”; and he must “laud her as blessed through all generations” until the end of time.

In truth, the veneration of Mary is so natural for the Christian who is logical in his belief; it is so completely understandable for every true disciple of her Divine Son, that only a total blindness could misjudge it.

If I call upon the name of Jesus,
I can never speak to Him alone,
After ‘Jesus’ I call upon ‘Mary’
Think first of Him and then of Her!

Who, indeed, is he who separates Mother and Child,
Who after all are so closely bound together?
You who bore for us the Son of God,
Remain for us forever Mother.

By chance, an American leaflet came into my possession today that illustrates the rationality of the Catholic veneration of Mary in a very simple although no less accurate manner. And because Protestantism has impressed upon us precisely such an irrational caricature of the Catholic Marian cult, I wanted to cite a passage from this here:

The Fourth of July takes first place among all the civil holidays of this land. It is the day on which the freedom of this country was born; the day in the year 1776 when a number of excellent, noble and freedom-loving men gathered together in Philadelphia and signed a document which announced to the crowned head of England that the colonists were tired of British tutelage and tyranny and that they were breaking away from it. And so the dawn of freedom broke forth across this entire land.

This day is justly celebrated in a splendid way on account of that fact. Businesses are closed, everywhere one hears the joyful and jubilant shouts of the people, everywhere resound rifles and pistols and the thunder of cannon. In the cities, brilliant parades are held; soldiers in gala uniforms move with shining guns and pistols, accompanied by drum rolls and star-spangled banners through the densely animated streets. In the evening the cities glow with innumerable stars reflecting the manifold colors of the bonfires and the shooting off of rockets. The rattling of the fireworks seem as though they will never come to an end. The houses of the citizens sport festive decorations. A number of homes are emblazoned with the portrait of a noble man who is justly known to every American under the name of the Father of his Country. Not infrequently, one sees next to the painting of this man that of a woman as well. And if one asks who this woman might be, the answer is that she is the mother of George Washington.

Let us imagine someone who might be angered over the display of that picture, mock it, and ask why it was being publicly displayed. After all, what had she done for the country? Had she led the American Army? Did she draw up the battle lines and lead the troops to victory? Did she plunge into the fray with a weapon in her hand to strike the cocky British on the head? No, the answer would be; nothing of the sort. She was nothing more than a common woman, an everyday housewife. ‘Therefore, down with the picture’, the critic might cry out!

What would one say to such a man? Is it not true that he would be told that he had lost his reason and had gone mad? What if he went further; if he picked up stones and mud to hurl at and dishonor and soil the picture of this truly fine and noble woman; what then? Is it not true that in less than no time a hundred hands would rise to avenge the scandal, and the evildoer would later tell of his good fortune if he had managed to get out of the situation by the skin of his teeth?

But who is this woman, this mother, in comparison with the Mother of God? Who is her son, on whose account she is honored, in comparison with the Son of Mary, who freed not only one land, one people, but the peoples and the nations and the men of all lands and of all times, and freed them not from the tyranny of an earthly power, but from the slavery and the dominion of the devil? This woman is someone who re-opened the gates of heaven closed to us through sin and destroyed the sentence of our rejection; a woman who made us the children of the Father of her Son, who is the Lord, God, Creator, and Guide of all things, and His own co-heirs. How ineffably high and exalted must Mary now stand above all other mothers, since her Son so infinitely towers above all other sons of men!

If an ordinary mother, whose son is respected and has become famous through heroic deeds which he earned on behalf of the well-being of his fellow citizens and his Fatherland, and whose mother is therefore not permitted to be mocked or denigrated or blasphemed or reviled, how much more has Mary earned that highest honor and distinction: she, the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has redeemed the whole human race from its sins; she who was the means by which this Redemption came to pass!

How curious this is! Scarcely did I start writing this letter to you, when the American Press reported the unveiling of a Mary Washington Monument in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the accompanying discourse of President Cleveland. This speech forms a kind of counterpart to what I just noted above. The Protestant speaker said, “I believe that the man who forgets a love for his mother is capable of every treason and every deprivation and cannot be trusted. George Washington said: ‘All that I am I owe to my mother.’ Therefore, we should never forget that if fame and honor fall due to a man, a share in that fame and that honor is due to his mother.”

How curious that such an unintended but no less conclusive justification of the Catholic Marian cult should come precisely in this month [May, 1894]; the month that we Catholics are used to dedicating to the special veneration of the mother of our Lord. And, by the way, the mother of Washington was also named Mary.

Still, however much we Catholics honor and distinguish Mary, never has it occurred to us to compare her, a creature, even only distantly, to God; much less to place her on the same level with God. She, for us, is infinitely small and limited with respect to God. We ascribe to her absolutely no power whatsoever other than that which she has obtained from God. And the same holds true for us with respect to the other saints. We pray to God—the Catholic Catechism tells us this—so that He may help us through His Omnipotence; we pray to the saints so that they may help us through their intercession with God.

The living, also, pray for one another, but does anyone think that this somehow cripples Christ’s role as mediator?

But can we not see in this prayer a kind of mistrust of Jesus Christ? No, for we expect first of all grace and eternal life from God’s will alone, through the merits of Christ. We look, secondly to the intercession of the saints, as well as to those of the angels, as can also be seen in Holy Scriptures themselves, as, for example, in the Revelation of St. John (5:8), where twenty-four Elders are said always to be before the Throne of God, unceasingly bringing the prayers of the saints to the All Highest.

The living, also, pray for one another, but does anyone think that this somehow cripples Christ’s role as mediator? However, should you doubt that those dwelling in the hereafter know something of us, and if you still consider the Bible to be valid to look to for God’s Word, then you can easily rid yourself of your doubt if you would glean the message of still further scriptural passages besides those mentioned above: Luke 13:10; Tobias 12:12; Zacharias 1:12; 2 Maccabees 15:12-15.

Even Luther, although he often contradicts himself in this regard as he does in every other matter as well, has testified to calling upon the aid of the saints. Thus, he once admitted: “I say and hold fast with the whole of Christianity that we should honor and call upon the loving saints; for who would contest that in our day, God, through His Holy Name, still visibly performs miracles at the sites of their holy bodies and graves?” (Wittenberg 7, 7).

Testimonies to the invocation of the Saints can be found in Luther, albeit alongside contrary statements, until the year 1541; that is to say, five years before his death.

Here is a passage from a splendid apologetic pastoral letter that the Bishops of Prussia addressed to the faithful of their dioceses from the tomb of St. Boniface, in Fulda, in January of 1889. They wrote:

The crown of all of the distortions of the teachings of the Catholic Faith is the assertion that the Catholic Church…attributes the adoration which is due to God alone to the Virgin Mary and to the saints as well. We reject this assertion with the deepest disgust. We Catholics direct all of our reverence, consisting of our Faith, Hope, Love and Worship, solely and alone to the true, living, Triune God.

To direct this divine worship to any creature whomsoever, however exalted he or she might be in the order of nature and grace, is idolatry in the eyes of every Catholic. The reverence to God is the sole thing that we call worship. That which we direct to the Mother of God is essentially and totally different. Just as little as the honor and love that children render to their parents, or subjects to their princes, contradicts the love due to God—it, in fact, fulfills His fourth commandment—does reverence to the saints contradict the worship due only to Him.

Rather, this arises from that divine reverence and shares in its same goal. We honor the saints as friends of God, as true followers and members of Christ because God Himself honors them this way as well. However, all honor that we render to them we render on account of God and for the glorification of God, who through His grace sanctified them and gave them to us as a model.

This applies in the highest measure to the reverence that we render to the Most Blessed Virgin in fulfillment of the words: ‘Behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed.’ For this reverence has its sole ground and its sole goal in Jesus Christ, in whom we believe as the true Son of the Eternal Father and the true Son of the Virgin Mary. In offering such reverence we are far removed from considering Mary as someone other than a creature.

Yes, she is the purest and most holy among all creatures, but all of her purity and sanctity have been given to her through the merit and grace of Jesus Christ for His honor. We also honor Mary no differently, no more, and no less than God Himself, according to the witness of the Gospel through the message of the angel, who honored her in greeting her as ‘full of grace’; as someone in whom ‘the Lord is.’

If we call upon Mary, the angels and the saints, we do not expect grace and help from them due to their own power. Rather, we expect these blessings through their intercession, from God alone, through their and our sole Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Asking the Mother of our Savior and the glorified saints for the help of their prayers is just as reasonable and Christian as our appealing to our fellow Christians on earth for their prayers.

If Saint Paul in his epistles asks for the prayers of the faithful, should it therefore be wrong if we commend ourselves to his intercession in Heaven? Or should the ‘Our Father’ lose its strength due to the fact that we bring the memory of our Salvation in Christ Jesus to Him through the greeting of the angel, and add the petition: ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, prayer for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death?’

Also, we do not ascribe to the saints either omniscience or any other divine characteristic, but rather trust that God will allow them to have our supplications recognized, so that they can continue in Heaven the work of the Christian love that they practiced on the Earth. The Catholic Church teaches that this reasonable and pious recourse to the saints, which emergences directly from the article of the Apostles Creed regarding the Communion of Saints, is salutary and beneficial, and that it applies in a special way to our own age. For it is indeed beneficial and salutary to oppose to the absorption in earthly affairs and the illusions of transient desires models of heavenly feeling; to set against these, holy lives full of self-renunciation and the eternal Kingdom of Christ and his elect that is also our eternal goal.

In the meantime, your Hugo greets you.

Short answer: No!

Short answer: Yes!

” To deify someone doubtless means to place him on the same level as God, to bestow divine honors to him, to adore him. We Catholics direct all of our reverence, consisting of our Faith, Hope, Love and Worship, solely and alone to the true, living, Triune God.

For the Catholic hyper-veneration (not all official, but not censored either) of the Mary of Catholicism Mary essentially deifies her, ascribing uniquely divine powers and adulation not given to any other person except God *

As the the Son of God has a unique unique relationship with the Persons of the Trinity, so also Mary is said to have a unique relationship with all three Persons of the Trinity;
As Christ is the express image of God, and highly exalted above all under the Father, having the primary position among all creation, so Mary is declared to be the greatest saint of all, and the first of all creatures, and as having a certain affinity with the Father, with a pre-eminent resemblance which she bears to the Father;
As Christ was called the Son of God, indicating ontological oneness, so Mary is called the Mother of God (which naturally infers the same, and is not the language of Scripture, which even clarifies Israel birthed Christ "according to the flesh, God blessed for ever": Rm. 9:4,5);
As the the Son of God supernaturally, spiritually makes believing souls into children of God, Mary is said to be the mother of Christians in "supernatural and spiritual generation."
As Christ was sinless, so Mary was;
As the Lord remained a virgin, so also Mary;
As the Lord was bodily ascended into Heaven, so Mary also was;
As the Holy Spirit directs believers to be "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith," (Hebrews 12:2) in whom believes are accounted a holy nation, (1 Pt. 2:9) so Catholicism teaches that believers are to "turn their eyes to Mary" in whom "the Church is already the 'all-holy." (CCC 829)
As the Father made Christ Lord over all things, so Mary is said to be enthroned above all creation (all other believers have to wait for their crowns) and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things;
As Christ is given all power in heaven and in earth, so Mary is “surpassing in power all the angels and saints in Heaven.”
As Christ is given all power on Heaven and on earth, so Mary is said to have (showing some restraint) “almost unlimited power;” and showing less restraint, to be "omnipotent" (by grace);
As God the Father made His Divine Son functionally the Lord over the universe, so Mary states, "I command what I will, and introduce whom I will."
As no man comes to the Father but through the Son, so it is taught that no one can come to the Son except through Mary in Heaven;
As no one can obtain mercy, be saved/redeemed or be delivered and know the Father but through the Son, so the same is said of Mary;
As those whom God has chosen will come to Him, so it is said that if Mary wills our salvation, and then we are sure to obtain it.
As the emphasis is upon Christ as the Creator through whom God (the Father) made all things, including Mary, so it is emphasized that uniquely “to her, Jesus owes His Precious Blood,” shed for the salvation of mankind, (the logic behind which can lead back to Eve);
As Scripture declares that Christ suffered for our sins, so Mary is said to have done so also, even all the consequences of sin;
As Christ redeemed mankind (as many as truly believe) with the Father and the Spirit, so it is said of Mary that "we might rightly say she redeemed the human race together with Christ."
As Christ saves us from the condemnation and death resulting from the fault of Adam, so it is taught that man was condemned through the fault of Eve, the root of death, but that we are saved through the merits of Mary; who was the source of life for everyone.
As all things come from the Father through the Son, so Mary is made to be the dispenser of all grace; that "through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation."
As believers have confidence through Christ, so Mary is extolled as being the foundation of all the believer's confidence.
As the Lord wills all souls to be saved through Christ, so it is said that it is God's will that we obtain everything through Mary.
And as the Lord called souls to come to Him to be given life and salvation, so (in misappropriation of the words of Scripture) it is said of Mary, “He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord;” “that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will, that we obtain everything through Mary.”
As Christ is the King of the saints and over all kings, (Rv. 15:3; 17:14; 19:16) so Mary is made Queen of Heaven and the greatest saint, and that “Next to God, she deserves the highest praise;”
As Christ ever liveth to make intercession for the saints, so is Mary said to be in constant intercession;
as only to God is ascribed the power and privilege of hearing prayer from all flesh, so also is Mary extolled as doing so;
as believers only address God/Christ in prayer to Heaven, including in prostration before Him, so also do Catholics pray to Mary;
as believers only pray to God to have mercy on sinners, so Catholics beseech Mary to do so.
As Catholics (adding error to error) believe Christ gave His "real" flesh and blood to be eaten, so it is emphasized that Mary gave Him this, being fashioned out of Mary's pure blood and even being “kneaded with the admixture of her virginal milk,” so that she can say, "Come and eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared" (Prov. 9:5);
And as Christ is given many titles of honor, so Mary also is, except that she is honored by Catholics with more titles than they give to the Lord Himself!
Mary was a holy, virtuous instrument of God, but of whom Scripture says relatively little, while holy fear ought to restrain ascribing positions, honor, glory and powers to a mortal that God has not revealed as given to them, and or are only revealed as being possessed by God Himself. But like as the Israelites made an instrument of God an object of worship, (Num. 21:8,9; 2Kg. 18:4) Catholics have magnified Mary far beyond what is written and warranted and even allowed, based on what is in Scripture.
In addition, although (technically) Mary is not to be worshiped in the same sense that God is worshiped, yet the distinctions between devotion to Mary and the worship of God are quite fine, and much due to the psychological appeal of a heavenly mother (especially among those for whom Scripture is not supreme), then the historical practice of Catholics has been to exalt Mary above that which is written. As the Catholic Encyclopedia states, "By the sixteenth century, as evidenced by the spiritual struggles of the Reformers, the image of Mary had largely eclipsed the centrality of Jesus Christ in the life of believers." (Robert C. Broderick, ed., The Catholic Encyclopedia, revised and updated; NY: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987, pp.32,33)
And because Scripture does not say what the Catholic wants it to say about Mary, then when faced with challenges from those who hold Scripture as supreme, what the Catholic must attempt to do if he will try to defend the hyper exaltation of Mary from Scripture, is to wrest texts of Scripture to support it, such as seen below, often going to extrapolative extremes, even going beyond what even his church officially teaches. And which careless use of Scripture actually demeans it, rather than honoring it like as he does the Catholic Mary, and testified to the second class (at best) status of Scripture among Catholics.
Scripture no where states or teaches an exception for Mary as regards not being a sinner, or for her being a perpetually sinless virgin and having a sexless marriage (contrary to its description: Gn. 2:24; Mt. 19:4,5), who is ascended to Heaven, and who is already crowned (which happens after the resurrection) and enthroned as Queen of Heaven with almost unlimited power, including having the ability to process virtually unlimited prayer requests, (the Holy Spirit provides zero examples of prayer to anyone in Heaven but the Lord, or in its instructions on who to pray to), and who is even set forth by some notable Catholics as a more immediate and superior recourse for help than Christ Himself.
Never recorded a women who never sinned, and was a perpetual virgin despite being married (contrary to the normal description of marriage, as in leaving and sexually cleaving: Gn. 2:24; cf. Ruth 3:9) and who would be bodily assumed to Heaven (despite lack of evidence) and exalted (officially or with implicit sanction) as,
• an almost almighty demigoddess to whom "Jesus owes His Precious Blood" to,
• whose [Mary] merits we are saved by,
• who "had to suffer, as He did, all the consequences of sin,"
• and was bodily assumed into Heaven, which is a fact (unsubstantiated in Scripture or even early Tradition) because the Roman church says it is, and "was elevated to a certain affinity with the Heavenly Father,"
• and whose power now "is all but unlimited,"
• for indeed she "seems to have the same power as God,"
• "surpassing in power all the angels and saints in Heaven,"
• so that "the Holy Spirit acts only by the Most Blessed Virgin, his Spouse."
• and that “sometimes salvation is quicker if we remember Mary's name then if we invoked the name of the Lord Jesus,"
• for indeed saints have "but one advocate," and that is Mary, who "alone art truly loving and solicitous for our salvation,"
• Moreover, "there is no grace which Mary cannot dispose of as her own, which is not given to her for this purpose,"
• and who has "authority over the angels and the blessed in heaven,"
• including "assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels,"
• whom the good angels "unceasingly call out to," greeting her "countless times each day with 'Hail, Mary,' while prostrating themselves before her, begging her as a favour to honour them with one of her requests,"
• and who (obviously) cannot "be honored to excess,"
• and who is (obviously) the glory of Catholic people, whose "honor and dignity surpass the whole of creation." Sources and more.

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