devonst@burdvax.UUCP (Tom Albrecht) (01/03/87)
I have received some public and private responses to my observations
on the Roman Catholic traditions concerning Mary. I have observed
that in practice Catholics tend to worship Mary in the same manner as
they worship God. I also observed that the pronouncements by the
popes regarding Mary, especially the immaculate conception and
assumption, have tended to encourage this type of worship. And that
even though the official doctrines of the church deny the worship of
Mary, what the church officially teaches and what is practiced by the
laity are sometimes two very different things. My conclusion is that
Mariology encourages Mariolatry.
To each one who has questioned my view of Mariology I have posed the
following: "Your church says that Mary is 'co-mediatrix' with Christ.
Exactly what is she co-mediatrix of?" Not one of these people has
responded to my inquiry. In scripture Christ is declared to be the
mediator of our salvation. I Timothy 2:5 says, "For there is one God,
and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." In
Hebrews Christ is called the mediator of the new covenant. If there
is only one mediator what is Mary's roll?
The Catholic church uses three terms when discussing this concept of
Mary worship: latria, dulia and hyperdulia. Apart from the fact that
there is no scriptural basis for such a distinction, in practice
Catholics know little of the subtleties of difference between these
types of worship. Latria is the supreme worship given to God alone.
Dulia is a type of veneration given to angels and saints. Hyperdulia
is a higher form of veneration given to Mary. By using such terms the
church may officially deny that it worships Mary or the other saints,
but in practice most Catholics' attempts to get to God stop at Mary.
Catholics use the designation 'mother of God' to refer to Mary. While
this formulation goes all the way back to the Council of Ephesus in
431 its intention was not to elevate Mary to some high office. The
purpose was to combat the heresy of the Nestorians who tended to
separate the divine and human natures of Christ and to make Him into
two persons. Its purpose was not to exalt Mary, but to exalt Christ
and to show that He was very God who became flesh. Catholics have
abused this designation by adding on other titles. She is called
'queen of heaven', 'queen of the Apostles', 'queen of angels' and
other such pagan formulations. Clearly, the RC church has gone far
astray from the original intent of the Council of Ephesus.
In support of my thesis that Mariology encourages Mariolatry I offer
statements from officially endorsed documents of the Roman church.
Bishop Alphonse de Liguori has written a devotional book called "The
Glories of Mary" (1931, Redemptorist Fathers, Brooklyn). In it we
read:
And she is truly a mediatress of peace between sinners and God. (p. 82)
He fails and is lost who has not recourse to Mary. (p. 94)
The Holy Church commands a worship peculiar to Mary. (p. 130)
Many things ... are asked from God, and are not granted; they are asked
from Mary, and are obtained.(p. 127)
Mary is called ... the gate of heaven because no one can enter that
blessed kingdom without passing through her. (p. 160)
Our salvation is in the hands of Mary ... He who is protected by Mary will
be saved, he who is not will be lost. (pp. 169, 170)
The whole Trinity, O Mary, gave thee a name ... above every other name,
that at Thy name, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth,
and under the earth. (p. 260)
In "The Raccolta", a prayer book of the RC church, we find these prayers to
Mary:
Sweet heart of Mary, be my salvation.
Leave me not, My Mother, in my own hands, or I am lost; let me but cling to
thee. Save me, my Hope; save me from hell.
Jesus is often portrayed as either a stern or helpless individual.
The RC church commonly pictures Christ as the babe in the manger or
hanging dead on the cross. In both cases He is unable, because of His
condition, to do anything for fallen men. Mary, by contrast, is
viewed as someone sympathetic, willing to listen and act on our
behalf. In "The Glories of Mary" Bishop Liguori teaches that "If God
is angry with a sinner, and Mary takes him under her protection, she
withholds the avenging arm of her Son, and saves him." (p. 124) Of
course, to portray Mary as more compassionate than Christ goes
completely against the teaching of scripture where Christ is shown as
the very fullness of compassion. After reading Catholic literature we
get the impression that Mary followed Jesus around twisting His arm to
get Him to do good.
The RC church encourages use of the pagan designation 'queen of
heaven'. In practice, Catholics have a father God and a mother God.
This is paganism, pure and simple. The Canaanite goddess Astarte was
given the same title 'queen of heaven'. She is mentioned along with
Baal (father and mother gods) in Judges 2:13. In Jeremiah 7:18, the
Jews were condemned for making cakes for the queen of heaven. The
Jews had turned from the worship of the True God of Israel to the
worship of false deities. Jeremiah warned the people that God's
judgement would come upon them if they did not stop this pagan
practice.
I have already made the point that praying to dead saints is
unscriptural. We find no command or examples of this practice in
either the Old or New Testaments. Why do Catholics only pray to NT
saints? Why not pray to Abraham, Isaac or Jacob? Surely these dead
saints have the same abilities as those from the NT time. And how is
it that Mary, a finite human, is able to field what must amount to
hundreds if not thousands of request SIMULTANEOUSLY? Where did she
and the other saints get this unique power? Do all those in heaven
have this power or only those 'canonized' by the Roman church?
When it comes to the worship of Mary, the Roman Catholic church has
gone outside the bounds of scripture and has invented a system of
faith which denies the uniqueness of the work of Jesus Christ. This
invention is a practical, if not doctrinal, reality. The worship, or
veneration or adoration, of Mary is to be condemned as anti-christian
IN THE SAME WAY that the worship of false gods by the Jews was
condemned by the prophets. The history of the Reformation is the
history of the people of God being freed from the false worship
invented by the RC church. Men like Luther and Calvin taught that the
inventions of men, especially ones which detract from the true worship
of Almighty God, ought to be treated like the Plague. We do well to
study those distinctives and call for a renewed reformation of the
church of Jesus Christ in our own time.
Disclaimer: My purpose in discussing this doctrine of Mary is not to
incite ill feelings, but to observe and inform. As a former Roman
Catholic I know that much ignorance exists among the laity of that
church. I firmly believe that those who name the name of Jesus Christ
should be as faithful to Him and to His word as we possibly can.
--
Tom Albrecht
"Reformata, semper reformanda."actor@percival.UUCP (Clif Swinford) (01/13/87)
Pagan huh? Look into Gnostic tradition. They go back as far as those to
which you probably subscribe, and include specific veneration of masculine
and feminine aspects of the Divine. And they are, at least in their opinion,
Christian. It's ironic that this was one of the reasons that the gnostics were
suppressed (read: tortured and executed) by the early Catholic church...
As in your case, simply observations...
Clif Swinford
..!tektronix!reed!{percival,skeeve}!actor (UUCP)