Why do catholics venerate the blessed VIRGIN MARY? Mary in the Plan of Salvation The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Church Veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Church "... when the appointed time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman ... to enable us to be adopted ... (Gal.4:4-5)". The Catholic Church, taught by the Holy Spirit, honours this woman Mary, with filial affection and devotion as a most beloved mother (Lumen Gentium, .53). In the great Marian churches of the world, such as Notre Dame de Paris, and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, the central act of worship is the Mass - the Lord's supper, the bloodless re- enactment of His sacrifice on Calvary. The focus of worship is the altar, cross and tabernacle. Christ alone is the centre of our faith. He is the one mediator between God and humanity. http://www.catholicmissionleaflets.org/mary.htm
_________________R.Chandrasekaran
Catholics have this notion that God wanted a family. They have taken this idea to the extreme sense. Yes, Mary was honored to have been chosen to bring the Son and the Savior into the world; but she was just being part of God's will!!
_________________Martin G. Smith
Also I would say that they see her as the Mother of God "strongly literally" many of them at least do. She is the mother of God in the sense that God came through her womb as a human. But not in the sense that she created Jesus. Jesus has always existed as the Word since eternity past and He did not come into existence when Mary birthed His "humanity".Also to get to Jesus in their view you must first find His favor through his mother. Surely they would think if you could get favor with Mary then she could get you favor with Jesus. In a far off sense this has some/lil legitimacy. Like for instance the prayers of a righteous man accomplish much so dont we also ask righteous godly men to pray for us. Yes we do. So why not ask Mary? Well first off she is not around and secondly there are other people as blessed as her to ask for he who hear Jesus' words and does them shall be more blessed. Is it necromancy talking to the dead? She is not dead. Jesus talked to Elijah and Moses. But I would not say that that is readily available for all saints. Also in the light of how many Catholics have their lives and doctrine if they are speaking to some "saint" it is probably demonic.
Constantine created Catholicism to solidify imperial control against a growing tide of Christian dissidents at a time when Roman authority was becoming harder to maintain due a number of factors. National religions have a habit of trading deities and mixing cult elements when they conquer other nations. The Nazi regime co-opted Christian imagery for instance and Hitler often referred to himself as Christian even using anti-semitic elements in Luther to justify his racial theories.It makes things easier when the imperial group can create a pseudo-historical/mythological basis for their right to rule by co-opting common symbols. It also allows them to infuse old symbols with new meanings to produce a desired social change. In pop-culture terminology this is known as "frame jacking" and in the social sciences it is referred to as "social engineering". There is a strong gnostic current in the Catholic church...very strong..and Mary fit pagan conceptions of Isis (the Greco-Egyptian equivilant of a number of pagan "mother" deities found across the Middle East and Asia minor who were mixed together as Roman imperialism spread across Europe, Asia and Africa). The Catholic worship of Mary is often referred to by historians as the "Cult of Mary" and throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance was the vehicle for these gnostic ideas to find acceptable practice in the Judeo-Christian world. Since, for the most part, the Catholic clergy were the only group that could read, it was easy to mix elements of gnostic/pagan religion in when they were relating their interpretation of the Bible to the people. The rejection of this mixture is what lead to the martyrdom of so many saints as detailed in the Trail of Blood article posted by Greg in another section of the forum.
_________________David
I just remembered a good example of "frame jacking" that might put things in context:(from the wikipedia entry for Cheez-its)"The Green & Green Company of Dayton, Ohio first registered the name "Cheez-It" with the US Patent Office in 1921. After the stock market crash, The Green & Green Company was acquired by The Sunshine Biscuit Company, founded in 1902 as the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company. The Keebler Company acquired Sunshine in 1996, and Keebler was in turn acquired by Kellogg in 2001. Cheez-It crackers are still sold under the Sunshine label."Not many people remember what a Cheez-it orginally tasted like, and one can assume that whatever they tasted like in 1921 is not the same way they taste now.They are still marketed with the Sunshine label as this is what most people buying the product today will recognize(contemporary society has a notoriously short term memory).
The Catholic Church is 100% from hell... It has nothing to do with the Christ of the Bible or His true Bride. May the spirit of religous bondage be broken from you dear soul. I pray that you or anyone else caught up in the delusion of this filthy organization with a history of murder and child molestation would come out from her. The fruit is evident. There is a glorious new birth that awaits all those who hear His voice and come out from their dead relgion, even in this last hour.-Jim
I'm not sure that anyone was defending Catholicism, I think that the portion at the end of the first post by loveyouall was copied from a Catholic website and that was the basis of the question...but I may have misread.