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I tried to suggest that the word "cult" is equivocal and can serve as a red flag. I would advise against using it. The phrase "cult of Mary" is used approvingly by some Catholics, but NOT to refer to doctrinal or behavioral excesses but to denote those religious practices whch have to do with her. My singing the Salve Regina or praying my rosary is some of my participation in the cult.

With respect tot he petition which your learned and thoughtful post mentions, my unlearned opinion is this: People gonna petition. When you have a church of several gazillion members, even a niche is large in absolute terms, and there are always going to be people with misplace wild hair problems. That's a general observation. One only should get cranked up as the controversial petition approaches being granted. That's a general observation.

And another is, it's the weirdos that get all the air time.

Responding to your last paragraph, I would caution against concluding too much about us from the pedophilia/ephebephilia thing. First back when when this grotesquely awful stuff was really happening a lot, the Bps turned to pshrinks and the pshrinks were telling them entirely different things from what is now the received wisdom about this kind of stuff. It wasn't JUST fearfulness and denial. or rather, the fearfulness and denial were enabled by professional opinion. So I am told by folks I believe.

And the whole issue of "perception problem" is vexed. Conservatives are coming to see what it means when the "opinion makers" are at once resolutely and almost unconsciously biased against a group of people or a line of thought. Pauline Kael (sp?) famously admitted in 1972 that "Everybody I know voted for McGovern," as she expressed her incomprehension of Nixon's victory. Well "everybody I know" thinks --- a whole bunch of stuff about us which isn't true but conforms to the general media prejudice against us.

When you think of it, it is remarkable that my late godmother, a graduate of Oxford University, could characterize RCs as generally superstitious and ignorant when arguable the most famous English Catholic of the past couls of hundred years was the immensely learned John Cardinal Newman. Prejudice is strong.

My church has an outdoor Corpus Christi procession. Shall I view that as contributing to a perception problem or shall I just take advantage of the opportunity to express my devotion to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament while contending with my mixed feelings about what the University students passing by must think of a geezer kneeling on the sidewalk?

I admit that I have no clue why some people would get all cranked up about this or that Marian title.

One last: With respect to your comment that the Church has not done enough to squelch such movements, I really don't think the Church operates that way any more. My experience is that those guys WAY over there in the Vatican don't really start doing any squelching until somebody gets REALLY REALLY in their face about some issue. Last night somebody posted a thread about a movie about the Trappists. The director?/producer? had first contacted the order in the early '90s I think, Their response was along the lines of, we need to think about this, we're not ready, come back in, say, 15 years. I think that gives more of a flavor of the tempo of the church's response to problems.

The petition was not granted, right?