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"Jesus is the only path to God for a Christian. Mary as an 'advocate' is that attempt to make her a part of the trinity that the good doctor refers to here."

That's just silly. In Catholic doctrine, the Saints are just as capable of being an advocate as Mary. Does that mean that Catholics think -every- saint is "part of the Godhead"? The Trinity doesn't have 3 points, it has 144,000?

"The idea being, that Mary has to intervene on our behalf to get God's attention."

No one has ever said that Mary -has to- inteverne. Cathlics most certainly can, and constantly do, pray directly to Jesus and to God for intercession. Catholics believe she -can- intervene, that God permits this, that God is willing to listen to her entreaties on someone's behalf. Same for the saints. I don't see anything wrong with that. You may still disagree with that from a theological basis, and that's your right, but stop putting words in their mouth. YOU know and -I- know that if you actually walk up to ANY Catholic and say "Do you -worship- Mary as the 4th part of the Trinity rather than simply revere her as Gabriel commanded?", virtually any Catholic will say "No, she is revered, not worshipped". I don't know what you and this professor are doing, accusing them of lying or accusing them of being too stupid to tell the difference, but either way, it's condescending, it's insulting, and I think it's exceedingly rude to continue to put words into their mouths that they would never agree with if you ever -asked- them.

Qwinn

I don't agree.

My grandmother used to say, "Mary wasn't a saint, and she wasn't a person, and she never died . . ."

You and I don't know what any Catholic would say, but I do know the policy.

And actually, I don't know if God does or does not mind if we pray to St. Stephen in order to speak with God.

The only way to the Father is through the Son. You talk about me putting words in people's mouth's, you just tried putting word's in God's mouth.

My grandmother was part of a society within the Church that was very Marion. The average person would find it difficult to tell the difference between reverence and worship. 4th part of the Godhead? I don't know what they'd tell you.

Anyway, I don't think that this point, which is obviously debatable, takes away from the guys analysis.

More to the point, he footnoted it profusely, so if you disagree with his take, you can take your own.