Yes, I do follow Christ.
Do I disrespect Mary? No. Luke records all generations shall count her blessed. Why? Because she gave birth to the only Son of God. I agree with the good doctor.
Do I accord to Mary the roman catholic titles of Queen of Heaven, Queen of the Apostles, etc? No.
Do I agree with roman catholicism that tells people to pray to Mary, to look to her for answered prayers when Christ won't answer them? No.
We have catholic writings that tell us the following:
No one can enter into Heaven except through Mary,
that Holy Scripture was written for Mary, about Mary and on account of Mary,
that Mary is the dispensatrix of all the graces God bestows on man,
that no man is delivered or preserved from the world-wide snares of Satan except through Mary, and God grants His graces to no one alone except through her,
every grace granted to man in this life has three successive steps: from God it comes to Christ, from Christ to the Virgin and from the Virgin it descends to us.
There's a lot more. http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/mary18a.htm
Now, let the reader take note. The above quotes from the website all contradict the Bible and Mary's own Son.
We have John recording these Words of Jesus.
John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father but through ME.
I ask, who is disrespecting who?
Does it matter to a devout Roman Catholic? Not in the least. But we won't have her dissed, either, FRiend.
" No one can enter into Heaven except through Mary, that Holy Scripture was written for Mary, about Mary and on account of Mary, "
Where did you get that last one? The first one is "twist and shout" as far as I'm concerned. I'm not saying it's you, but the source. Luke's Gospel, although Martin Luther (who, IMHO, is the one who deserves lower case) decided the world needs no other Gospel but that of St. John as a source of doctrine, relates the story of the Incarnation of Jesus, which obviously includes Mary. Our Catholic tradition concludes that St. Luke spoke with Mary when writing his Gospel, for details about His Life before His public ministry. That part of the Scripture was about Mary as the Woman who was the mother of Jesus.
As for the remainder, yes, we do believe that Mary is the Mediatrix of All Graces. She was given to us as our Mother by Jesus as He was dying upon the Cross. It's a matter of interpretation, E- a Catholic believes that it is not so much that a person is a Christian that Jesus spoke : no one comes to the Father but through Me." It is His Incarnation, Ministry, Passion, Death, and Resurrection that makes it POSSIBLE for us to gain Heaven- original sin had precluded that. It was through Mary's "fiat", her choice to accept the unimaginable Grace of being the Mother of Jesus, insomuch as He was given to the world through her, by the Power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity, God and has two Natures in one Being: thus Mary's title, "Mother of God."
Sorry for not answering sooner, E, no disrespect intended- my life has been kind of zooey lately, there was a disaster and I'm beginning to recover from it. Not a pity thing, just that my thoughts are still a bit scattered, and I'm kind of shaken up- that's why I was absent for awhile.
We may not agree, but we've had some interesting discussions! God bless and keep you! I'm back, just a little at a time for now...