The Importance of Mary in Catholicism

[Jan III Sobieski]

Why do Catholics pray to Mary Actually? Probably to win gods favor, or what?
I'm a catholic.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Catholics venerate Mary and seeing as she was the mother of god, ask her to intercede for them. The same goes for saints. Basically Catholics see her as a loving figure who would petition god to answer prayers.

[Jan III Sobieski]

How about a protestant view of mary

[Jabberwock]

How about a protestant view of mary

Just a woman, I believe. I think there are instances where Jesus himself just called her a woman and that he only has a father and not a mother.

Concerning prayer, I think there are passages where Jesus said that he is the only intermediary between god and man.

I'm making guesses so don't quote me on this. I hear these things from protestants.

Personally, the position of Mary in Catholicism does baffle me. Where did she receive so much significance by god or Jesus other than just being a means to an end?

[Jan III Sobieski]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_views_on_Mary
http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles...estantmary.htm
The Protestant views on the Blessed Virgin

[blackwatersix]

Personally, the position of Mary in Catholicism does baffle me. Where did she receive so much significance by god or Jesus other than just being a means to an end?

1.) (Well this is relatively recent, but hey) Immaculate Conception.

2.) Remember the wedding at Cana? Mary basically interceded for the couple there to her Divine Son. Despite Jesus saying that it's not the right time, He did it anyway. This shows that Jesus respects her and thus she is significant as an intercessor to Him.

[MaximiIian]

How about a protestant view of mary

I suppose it'd depend on the denomination, of which there are an absurdly large amount. Typically, the more high-church ones like old Lutheranism or Anglicanism have similarities with Catholic Mariology, though not to the same degree and not possessing some of the more sophisticated dogma regarding her.

EDIT: Phier, you do know that polytheism and pantheism are two entirely different things, right? What you're talking about is more polytheistic. And while Catholic veneration to their saints might seem like polytheism, it really is not the same thing at all.

[Phier]

EDIT: Phier, you do know that polytheism and pantheism are two entirely different things, right? What you're talking about is more polytheistic. And while Catholic veneration to their saints might seem like polytheism, it really is not the same thing at all.

Whoops, had pantheon on the brain, used the wrong term,

As for your second point, its kinda like when a guy has a little extra sex with men but he is like totally not gay!

I'm saying it fulfills the same need/want people can have. Polytheism is comforting, its orderly, its easy to grasp, the 'gods' are more like men, and in the saints cases they are human. Even as a child I never saw a real difference between pray TO a saint and praying to a saint for intercession. Its a technicality of spirituality.

[empr guy]

How about a protestant view of mary

at my local church (its one of "the first church of christ" varity ), i dont recall mary being mentioned any other time then if she was an important character in a story the pastor was reading. As for the saints, nothing at all.

but thats just that sect of protestantism, like its been said, there are an absurd amount of different protestant churches. There are like 3-6 different churches (or more) in mine and the nearest town. Some of them are probaly catholic though.

[Phier]

Psychologically I think of Mary as the female 'queen' goddess. Shes called the queen of heaven even.

Catholicism is pantheistic in my opinion, first you have the craziness of the holy trinity. Then you have Mary, and finally you have the Saints. You have the patron saint of this or that. Now you pray to them to get gods attention I guess, but I think it fill the fun of a pantheistic religion which is easier to relate to, while maintaining a monotheistic belief which works better logically (not saying its logical).

So basically we pray to Mary more to keep the women happy they get to pray to a female who is like almost as important as Jesus!

[motiv-8]

The Trinity is not pantheistic (although from the outside and with little explanation it does appear needlessly excessive), and Mary and the Saints aren't gods, so basically nothing you said there made any sense in terms of definitions, dogma, and actual practice of Catholicism. Intercession is not doctrinally or theologically equivalent to God whatsoever. You sound like you'd make a good Muslim, though, their arguments are the same.

[Phier]

The Trinity is not pantheistic (although from the outside and with little explanation it does appear needlessly excessive), and Mary and the Saints aren't gods, so basically nothing you said there made any sense in terms of definitions, dogma, and actual practice of Catholicism. Intercession is not doctrinally or theologically equivalent to God whatsoever. You sound like you'd make a good Muslim, though, their arguments are the same.

Eh, I said psychologically. I recall my mother, a good catholic at the time, bought a statue of St. Joseph (I think) when were were trying to sell our house that you bury upside down in the yard, had to be upside down you see. AFTER the house sells you are suppose to retrieve it and put in a prominent spot in your new house.

Might as well cast a spell and make a lamb sacrifice to the God of real estate.

You are right that they are not gods, but whats the difference? Really none. Greek and Roman gods had their place and their hierarchy. In this case instead of praying to the god of wine (who is truly worthy of worship, man knew how to party) we get the patron saints (plural of wine makers and such).

• Amandi
  
• Goar
• Lawrence
• Martin of Tours
• Morand
• Urban of Langres
• Vincent of Saragossa
• Walter of Pontnoise

The first one is also the patron saint..of beer!

Look we even got one to pray to against volcanic eruptions AND earthquakes!

http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-agatha-of-sicily/

Old time religion with a new wrapper.

The Muslims ARE right on this one, but who cares, they are right that Catholicism is basically pantheistic, but they are wrong about their own little ticket into paradise as well, so its sort of like arguing on the internet.

[Stavroforos]

Some people just have an axe to grind.

Some people, women especially, take Marian theology a bit too far, especially in Orthodox culture which I know of. That is, people take it farther than it is taken officially and theologically and dogmatically.

[MaximiIian]

Well, the key difference is that the saints in Catholicism are merely people (except for the archangels) that died in God's grace and are "in good standing" so to speak. Praying to a saint for intercession is asking them to pray to god for you, since they can't do anything themselves. They're not divine beings, only in the presence of one.

In an actual polytheistic system, you are praying to a god directly, as they're actual beings with divine powers all their own. You have no need to ask them to pray to a divine being. They are divine beings.

Yes, it's technical, but it's also a critical difference between the two concepts.
But, on the other part, I'd agree that it does fulfil a similar function.

[Monarchist]

I must admit that I do find Catholic Mariology very odd at times. There are more "St. Mary's Basilica/Cathedral/Church"-s in my own city than "Christ Church"-s. Doesn't that seem a little bizarre? Never mind all those Catholics who want Mary proclaimed "Co-Redemptrix", as if she is God Herself.

Being fair, though, we cannot pick on Catholics alone. Göthe's Faust, part II ends with an ascent into Heaven. Put to music by Gustav Mahler in 1907, the final lines read:

"Blicket auf zum Retterblick,
Alle reuig Zarten,
Euch zu sel'gem Glück
Dankend umzuarten!
Werde jeder bess're Sinn
Dir zum Dienst erbötig;
Jungfrau, Mutter, Königin,
Göttin, bleibe gnädig!"

The last two lines of this penultimate stanza read:

Virgin, Mother, Queen;
Goddess, be gracious to us

... and the very last two lines of the text:

"Das Ewig Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan."

The Eternal Feminine
Leads us upward.

The original text was written by a Göthe, a Lutheran, 22 years before the Catholic declaration of Immaculate Conception as dogma. Let's not single out Romans too much, eh?

[motiv-8]

You are right that they are not gods, but whats the difference? Really none.

Really? What's the difference between gods and people? You should be slightly ashamed you even asked that question, let alone gave the incorrect answer. You don't even have to believe in any single god to know the gulf is enormous.

[Phier]

Really? What's the difference between gods and people? You should be slightly ashamed you even asked that question, let alone gave the incorrect answer. You don't even have to believe in any single god to know the gulf is enormous.

Oddly I'm not ashamed at all. I would be ashamed if I were to blind to see the correlation, and slightly embarrassed.

[motiv-8]

Oddly I'm not ashamed at all. I would be ashamed if I were to blind to see the correlation, and slightly embarrassed.

It's impossible to be too blind to see the correlation when there is no correlation to be seen.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

The difference between gods and saints is smaller than most people think. The Abrahamic God is said to be the creator of the universe, but the same did not apply to the classical gods. They were born in this world and their struggles were usually personal and often petty. There were theories on the creation of the world, in Plato's case positing the existence of an outerwordly "Creator" who made the universe, in which the gods were created (making them an intermediate link in the hierarchy of beings, similar to the Christian archangels). The difference between Platonism and Christianity et al is that in the former the Creator is completely detached from this world, since something perfect cannot interact with something imperfect. Thus, the gods are the highest beings humans can ever interact with. In these new religions, the omniscient and omnipotent God is considered to be on talking terms with humans. This still leaves the logical inconsistency of something perfect interacting with something imperfect, and that, along with centuries of habit, led to the veneration of saints as intermediaries, I think. Mary is particularly important because she is a "mother of god". In the absence of a distinctly female goddess (Jesus is the only part of the trinity who has appeared as a human, and that was as a male), it was only natural to elevate her theological position to fill that niche.

[SigniferOne]

Yes the Protestants do not recognize any saints as either existing, or being theologically potent. They don't pray to a Saint to ask God, they disbelieve in any Saints and pray to God directly.