I believe --of course I hasten to say this is my
opinion and not Church teaching necessarily --
that there is an unfortunate tendency for any person who holds any sort of view, religious included, to ‘exaggerate’ the perceived ‘defects’ of the ‘opposing’ view.
The original poster has his./her own idea of what constitutes ‘appropriate’ worship
in his/her own personal opinion–and anything which in either direction doesn’t ‘match’ is considered a problem.
Now the fact is that there really is a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ way to worship God (and to honor the saints, especially Mary).
For example, we can all I think agree that a wrong way to worship God would be to send ourselves into abortion facilities strapped with bombs and blow ourselves up to ‘save the children’. No matter how we tried to convince ourselves that we were honoring and worshipping God in doing this, we would be wrong. Correct?
So there are definitely ‘right’ ways and wrong ways to do things.
But the right ways can encompass a very
broad field and interpretation and manner.
For example, let’s look at a party.
You can have a party that is large, or small. You can have a costume party. You can have a ‘theme’ party. You can have a formal party. You can have a casual party. Etc. etc.
And each individual person’s idea of what is found in, say, ‘formal’ can run from say formal Victorian Britain to ‘formal’ means 'not wearing jeans and Tees".
So. . .the right way of honoring a saint, say, can run from a simple “St. Michael, defend us from the devil” said to oneself after Mass or at home, to a Litany of Saints recited in church and lead by the priest, to lighting a candle and praying for the safety of our soldiers, at home or at church, to reading devotional books and pondering on how to follow our Lord as His saints did, to saying the rosary (at home, in travel, in Church), to composing poetry or creating works of art to honor the saint because of that saint’s reflecting glory and giving the glory ultimately to God . . . etc.
Now, a person who thinks that it is ‘enough and perfect’ to have a calendar with the names of the saints on it, to hear them ‘mentioned’ in Mass, and to address any kind of ‘thinking about religion’ as “I pray ONLY TO GOD” but of course I ‘call Mary blessed’ because Scripture says to, and I think St Paul while a horrible sinner at least ‘saw the light’ (no pun intended) and spoke up about GOD. . .
that person might endure the
idea that ‘other people’ might say a rosary now and then, or might look at works of art. . .but that person would start to get ‘uncomfortable’ if he or she saw the person wearing a miraculous medal (superstition! Not God alone!)., . .would definitely start to twitch if he saw a person approach a statue (graven IMAGE! Not God alone!), and would start to lose it completely if the person spoke about praying to Mary or how she is a special creation (you make her a goddess! You’re taking time away from GOD! You’re worshipping a creature"). . .
because that person is so sure that
only his idea of what is appropriate worship IS appropriate worship.
Despite the quips about the Blue Army, the only real defense I have seen is people telling others not to
run Mary down. (Hardly Mariolatry).
While from the ‘other direction’, the remarks start out as thinly veiled (no pun intended) criticism of ‘other people’ being
extreme. . .then accused of either not being smart enough to
recognize they were worshipping Mary or being
so smart that they were '
trying to pretend they weren’t.'
I cannot help but see that the vast majority of people are simply saying, “Please do not judge others and call them idol worshippers and Mary worshippers, especially when they themselves state that they are not”. . .and that these people are not
demanding that others JOIN them by lighting a candle or praying a rosary. In fact, people have been at PAINS to say that the Church does not compel people to do so.
**IOW, there is really little if any ‘Mariology’ exhibited by any Catholic. There is, however, an awful lot of neo-iconoclassicism and a rather "puritan’ kind of attempt to NARROW Catholic worship ‘down’. Some of this, in my OPINION, is actually due to a perception of some cultures --notably the Hispanic but also the earlier (19th and early 20th) century perceptions of Italian, Spanish, and Polish cultures, and even earlier, the mid 19th century Irish cultures --being INFERIOR to the ‘protestant’ Anglo-Saxon, stiff upper lip, ‘no excess’ culture. **
Practices done by these groups are often still seen as ‘inferior’ even in our supposedly multicultural world, and the prejudice is often deeply buried and will be hotly denied. . .but, again in my opinion, it is there. . .
