{"id":102,"date":"2004-03-08T23:44:34","date_gmt":"2004-03-08T23:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/03\/catholics_and_m.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:48:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:48:46","slug":"catholics_and_m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/03\/catholics_and_m.shtml","title":{"rendered":"Catholics and Mary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virusdoc<\/a> had two posts on the Catholic position on Mary. One Friday<\/a> from the ‘Doc and another Monday<\/a> with some reader comments. Because of his exploration of Catholicism, I’ve spent a fair amount of energy here commenting on Catholic doctrine. Suffice to say I’ve found much to disagree with, and the subject of Mary is no exception. Let the record show, however that I have no agenda here against Catholics, it’s just working out this way. Ok, enough disclaimers, on to the topic.
\nFrom his Friday post, here’s a list of things that Catholics teach about Mary:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. She was born without sin.<\/li>\n
  2. She lived her entire life without sin.<\/li>\n
  3. She never tasted death, was ‘assumed’ into heaven at the end of her life.<\/li>\n
  4. She was a virgin her entire life.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    All but the last of these have been declared ‘infallible’ and all Catholics are required to believe them. He and I are on the same page her when he says “Not surprisingly, this amount of attention paid to ANY human being other than Jesus is a little hard to swallow for a protestant.” In fact, I can’t say I find anything to agree with in those teachings. (Actually, that’s not true. I agree with the first point, but I believe that’s true about all of us.) It seems to me that they are elevating Mary to the same level as Jesus, actually God, Himself! Christ is the only other human being ever born that can lay claim to all of the last three items on that list. To give those to Mary, to me, is to make her equal to God.
    \nMonday’s reader response attempted to explain to our protestant mindset how this all makes sense. Honestly, it helped a little. I’m willing to admit that a fair amount of my incredulity at this idea is cultural. That is, I was brought up protestant and never really was exposed to any catholic teaching of any substance. It’s just as alien to me as Buddhism.
    \nThe general gist of it, assuming that I understood it, was that the Holy Spirit has been at work over the centuries, continually revealing God to the church and those revelations are just as valid as scripture itself. I can buy that the Holy Spirit is at work revealing God, but I have a hard time accepting it as equally valid as scripture. I mean, all kinds of people, including some sincere, well-meaning people, claim that God has spoken to them and given them a revelation. Now, many of them are just hoping we’ll open our wallets, but the rest are honest, God loving people. How are we, or anyone, to separate the wheat from the chaff if not by comparing their teachings and proclamations to scripture? Scripture is a constant standard against cultural and technological change, not to mention the whims of men. Even the most spiritual, intelligent and well meaning men have some bone headed ideas at times.
    \nFrankly, I have a hard time seeing the Catholic position on Mary as anything but idolatry. I have a good friend at work that’s a devout catholic and more than that, he’s a man with a deep and sincere love for God. My intention, as stated earlier, is not to bash Catholics or to stir up trouble or debate, but I just can’t figure out how these ideas make sense. Can anyone help me do that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Virusdoc had two posts on the Catholic position on Mary. One Friday from the ‘Doc and another Monday with some reader comments. Because of his exploration of Catholicism, I’ve spentRead More Catholics and Mary<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nCatholics and Mary - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/03\/catholics_and_m.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Catholics and Mary - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Virusdoc had two posts on the Catholic position on Mary. 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There are a couple of things that bother me about this story. The first is the Catholic Charities stance of not allowing birth control prescriptions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":739,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/11\/issues_issues_i.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":102,"position":1},"title":"Issues, issues, issues","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"November 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I had written this back in July but never posted it. I guess I thought it needed something, I don't know what. 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