Those Catholics and Their Mary

I’d like to relate something of my journey to the catholic faith in terms of devotion and doctrine.

The usual accusation against Catholics is that they advocate worship of Mary. I am (now) amused at how easy it is to defend this doctrine and devotion, and how deliberately antagonistic to Catholicism one has to be to ignore the evidence.

Protestants claim that the Marian devotions Catholics practice are idol worship in that they ‘place Mary above (or beside) God.

To go into all the absurd accusations Protestants level at Marian devotion would produce a volume more suited for curing insomnia than a constructive debate, but I shall attempt to deal briefly with the most common here.

A. Objections to May being called ‘Mother of God’. This objection can be dismissed almost immediately since the rejection of Mary as ‘Mother of God’ has been considered formal heresy since the great councils clearly defined the Trinity and the two natures of Christ. I should point out that Lutherans, or the Confessions at least, do ascribe to Mary as Mother of God. Luther himself calls her Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and even asks for her intercession at the beginning and end of his commentary on the Magnificat!

B. The charge of Idolatry is equally absurd. We pray only to God, but we can ask others to pray for us, and with us. In fact the Scripture urge us to do so. Sometimes we ask those Christians we know in the flesh. Other times we might ask those who are already in heaven with God.

C. There is not enough space here to deal with the “It’s not in Scripture” routine. I recommend Joyce Little’s book titled “Church and the Culture War” which changed my thinking on Mary, and on faith. We’ve dealt well enough with sola Scriptura before and I intend to look at the area of Marian trust later so that’s enough here for now.

More has happened, I need to leave this topic for a moment.

Next: Summoned to a Summit