Unless you know what is in his heart you are bearing false witness in calling this worship. Following Catholic teaching, Pope Benedict would only offer worship to God, not to Mary. We love Mary and pray to her, but we worship God alone and recognize him alone as the one true God.
Iscool asks a very solid quesiton.....why does the Roman Catholic have to kneel before the statue of Mary...pray to it, etc., if it’s not worship?
It is NOT bearing false witness to state the facts that people are bowing down before a graven image representing Mary in direct violation of one of the Ten Commandments.
Catholics can try to weasel their way out of a tight spot with verbal semantics all they want by arguing over what *worship* is and how nobody can tell what's in the heart, but the actions DO show what's in the heart. And the actions of disobeying the second commandment show rebellion against God in the heart.
The Second commandment says not to make graven images, which Roman Catholicism does and endorses, and it says not to bow before them, which those pictures clearly show happening.