The Church attempts to replace Christ with Mary?

[Heart_Foam]

Come on, I can’t be the first… I think it’s between Earth and Mars, but of course, Bertrand couldn’t have known. We need another moon, and it can be the teapot. What’s life without whimsy.

 

[Heart_Foam]

There is NOTHING in Scripture which states that Mary cannot hear prayers on earth.

Nothing that cannot? We don’t know X is not true, therefore it is true. Many things, including Russell’s teapot, can be proved like that.

 

[Razanir]

“It’s as if you were a small child going to ask your father (the head of your family) for a favor, and your mother went with you and added to your request with, ‘yes, please let this be granted’.

Your mother couldn’t grant you the favor herself, alone. You don’t go to her instead of your dad. Your dad and your mother though are so united through marriage that they are indeed ‘one flesh’, so her request on your behalf is a powerful ‘intercession’, but ultimately it is your father’s decision, even if, for example, you asked for a new baseball bat and he said yes, but he was going off to work and your mother was the one who went to the store with you and picked up the bat. It would still be coming to you through your parents (united as husband and wife), with your mother’s ‘intercession’ but solely by the authority of your father as head of the household.

This is of course a limited example as both your mother and father are creatures and even though your dad is the head of the family, your mother is not his ‘creature’. But even so, I think you can understand that Mary, a creature, not a creator, is still united to Christ, and that because she is so united (in a way that we ourselves will not be until we would, God willing, ourselves be in heaven as well) to Him, we can ask her to join her prayers to ours, to God.” (Tantum ergo)

This reminds me of a story from my own life. I work as a TA. One time, I was helping a student with homework, and he was so close to finishing, but would up with not quite enough time to turn it in on time. So I offered to ask the professor for more time, thinking the professor would be more willing to grant it if a TA asked than if a student asked. The verb I used for the action? Intercede. I described my offer as offering to intercede for him to the professor. Again, it’s a limited example. But it’s a nice earthly analogy.

 

[Prayer_Warrior]

I’m seeing more and more people in the Catholic Church, including high profile apologists, trying to make a case for Mary as co-Redemptrix in a “fifth Marian Dogma”. I know all the manipulations that they use to come to this conclusion. They practically jump through hoops explaining how “co” doesn’t mean equal with, but rather cooperation with. I get it, I understand the Latin roots of the word “co”. In my view, they ought to be focused on the word “redemptrix” and then they would know that it is not a title we should give to the Blessed Mother. It is one that would dishonor her humility and bring scandal. Mary’s blood did not redeem us. I understand that she cooperated with God and is the Theotokos. She cooperated with God in a way that surpasses the cooperation that we all strive for. Yet, I say again, her blood did not redeem us.

I believe the door has been closed on this matter (more than once) and yet people are out there promoting the fifth Marian dogma. Pope Pius IV, Council of Trent, Sess. 25, On Invocation, Veneration and Relics of Saints, and on Sacred Images, ex cathedra:

“… the saints, who reign with Christ, offer up their prayers to God for men; and that it is good and useful to invoke them suppliantly and, in order to obtain favors from God through His Son JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, WHO ALONE IS OUR REDEEMER and Savior… And they must also teach that images of Christ, the virgin mother of God and the other saints should be set up and kept… But if anyone should teach or maintain anything contrary to these decrees, let him be anathema.”

Now I will sit back and wait for people to say how I don’t get it and I must be a Mary hater. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love Mary and honor her as my mother. I have no problem with what the Church has already proclaimed about Mary. But this fifth dogma stuff is VERY problematic for me and seems to be exactly what the topic of this thread is about: replacing Christ with Mary.

 

[PRmerger]

Come on, I can’t be the first… I think it’s between Earth and Mars, but of course, Bertrand couldn’t have known. We need another moon, and it can be the teapot. What’s life without whimsy.

Life without whimsy.

I’m pretty sure there’s a Christian church out there which was started when one man’s “personal judgment” discerned that whimsy was unbiblical.

 

[PRmerger]

Nothing that cannot? We don’t know X is not true, therefore it is true.

You cannot, Stephen, proclaim, “It’s not in the Bible therefore it’s not permitted”* while*, in the same breath (!) *,also be espousing, “It’s not in the Bible, therefore it’s permitted”**.

Choose one paradigm, and then be consistent, Stephen.

Which one is it?

 

[PRmerger]

No one said she is. To say that she must be in order to hear a prayer is a non-sequitur, and is your burden to prove.

Egg-zactly.

This segues quite nicely with the question that I posed earlier to Heart Foam: doesn’t your being able to communicate with thousands of folks, whom you have never met, make you divine and omniscient?

 

[mdcpensive1]

I am sure your non-denom friend would agree that Jesus is the mediator between us and God the Father. I see two things:

1. If Jesus’s life is in our souls through sanctifying grace then anyone with that grace can mediate because Jesus is in us. And it is that Jesus that is mediating.
2. If you see that the Church is the Body of Christ and is being presented to the Father then the souls that make up the body are part of Christ, the one who mediates. However, the one who is FULL OF GRACE is the highest ranking soul and can mediate the most because of her place in the body of Christ.

 

[Kay_Cee]

request with, ‘yes, please let this be granted’.
Why doesn’t the kid go straight to his father? You imply the father is more likely to grant the same request just because someone else is asking. My point stands. KayCee even defended the very point. It’s evidenced by the empirical fact you believe in patron saints who you think are more effective in petitioning God for something under their purview than not. But, seen as you’ve taken issue with me, I suppose you either don’t believe in patron saints with special areas of influence, or will now recant that belief.

KayCee, I appreciate those quotes, but the righteous will be praying in accordance to God’s will, and the wicked won’t.

I never claimed otherwise. But if prayer does not move God at all, what is the point of praying?

The Bible also says “there is no one who is righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). So does James 5:16 describe a hypothetical situation that applies to no one? Of course not. Although no one is perfect, the prayer of the righteous is powerful so long as he is praying righteously. Otherwise, you would have to say that the wicked man could ask for something good, and wouldn’t get it; and the righteous man would ask for something bad and would get it. But that’s not right. God is just. Praying to Mary, thinking it improves one’s chances of a favorable outcome, undermines that.

I never claimed the bolded part. But if prayer does not influence God, why pray at all? And if asking Mary to pray for us does not improve one’s chances of a favorable outcome, how does asking a friend to pray for you improve one’s chances? Please explain how your objections do not apply just as well when asking a friend to pray for you.

 

[Usagi]

But no one is asking the only question worth asking: what kind of being must Mary necessarily be if she can hear, and forward, and pray with all the millions of prayers she receives? Is Mary a finite, limited human being, or does Catholicism make her ipso facto divine?

You are drastically underrating the meaning of ‘omniscient,’ ‘infinite,’ and ‘divine’ in this assertion.

The ability to process millions or even billions of simultaneous conversations is certainly impressive and beyond what an unaided earthly human can do, but it is still a finite capability, infinitely inferior to the actual power and knowledge of God. We have computer networks now that can do that, albeit without understanding what they are conveying. We can envision someday building an AI routing agent that could do exactly what Mary and the saints are supposed to be able to do. Would we then have constructed God? Of course not! The gap between “superhuman” and “divine” remains literally infinite.

A saint capable of receiving and passing on prayers in great numbers would have to be superhuman, or human but granted preternatural gifts, or human but in constant communication with the actual Omniscient Being … but not divine. And we are quite prepared to believe that those in Heaven are one or all of those first three things. We will certainly still be finite and human in Heaven … but that leaves a lot of room for capabilities no earthly human has before we even come close to treading on God’s turf.

Usagi

 

[PRmerger]

You are drastically underrating the meaning of ‘omniscient,’ ‘infinite,’ and ‘divine’ in this assertion.

The ability to process millions or even billions of simultaneous conversations is certainly impressive and beyond what an unaided earthly human can do, but it is still a finite capability, infinitely inferior to the actual power and knowledge of God. We have computer networks now that can do that, albeit without understanding what they are conveying. We can envision someday building an AI routing agent that could do exactly what Mary and the saints are supposed to be able to do. Would we then have constructed God? Of course not! The gap between “superhuman” and “divine” remains literally infinite.

A saint capable of receiving and passing on prayers in great numbers would have to be superhuman, or human but granted preternatural gifts, or human but in constant communication with the actual Omniscient Being … but not divine. And we are quite prepared to believe that those in Heaven are one or all of those first three things. We will certainly still be finite and human in Heaven … but that leaves a lot of room for capabilities no earthly human has before we even come close to treading on God’s turf.

Usagi

 

[EIF5A]

I’m seeing more and more people in the Catholic Church, including high profile apologists, trying to make a case for Mary as co-Redemptrix in a “fifth Marian Dogma”. I know all the manipulations that they use to come to this conclusion. They practically jump through hoops explaining how “co” doesn’t mean equal with, but rather cooperation with. I get it, I understand the Latin roots of the word “co”. In my view, they ought to be focused on the word “redemptrix” and then they would know that it is not a title we should give to the Blessed Mother. It is one that would dishonor her humility and bring scandal. Mary’s blood did not redeem us. I understand that she cooperated with God and is the Theotokos. She cooperated with God in a way that surpasses the cooperation that we all strive for. Yet, I say again, her blood did not redeem us.

I believe the door has been closed on this matter (more than once) and yet people are out there promoting the fifth Marian dogma. Pope Pius IV, Council of Trent, Sess. 25, On Invocation, Veneration and Relics of Saints, and on Sacred Images, ex cathedra:

Now I will sit back and wait for people to say how I don’t get it and I must be a Mary hater. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love Mary and honor her as my mother. I have no problem with what the Church has already proclaimed about Mary. But this fifth dogma stuff is VERY problematic for me and seems to be exactly what the topic of this thread is about: replacing Christ with Mary.

As someone interested in possibly joining the Church, this had always been on the back of my mind as, “Oh no, if I become Catholic, and if this dogma gets passed, what am I going to do?! I have to obey the Church, but Christ is the necessary and sufficient Redeemer. I might become a heretic for not believing!”

(On a tangent, were there similar worries and hesitation among Catholics leading up to the dogma of Immaculate Conception?)

 

[PRmerger]

As someone interested in possibly joining the Church, this had always been on the back of my mind as, “Oh no, if I become Catholic, and if this dogma gets passed, what am I going to do?! I have to obey the Church, but Christ is the necessary and sufficient Redeemer. I might become a heretic for not believing!”

(On a tangent, were there similar worries and hesitation among Catholics leading up to the dogma of Immaculate Conception?)

If there were, I would have assuaged these worriers with this: relax. If you believe the Church got it right about A, B, and C, then you can rest assured that she is right on D as well.

That’s what I heard Jimmy Akin did when he was coming into the Church and still had a few difficulties.

 

[mdcpensive1]

As someone interested in possibly joining the Church, this had always been on the back of my mind as, “Oh no, if I become Catholic, and if this dogma gets passed, what am I going to do?! I have to obey the Church, but Christ is the necessary and sufficient Redeemer. I might become a heretic for not believing!”

(On a tangent, were there similar worries and hesitation among Catholics leading up to the dogma of Immaculate Conception?)

I can see where many who hold Christ as prime would have trouble with associating anything that seems to say he had help or even needed help. Christ is prime but not the only one involved. When reading scripture one thing that stands out is that He does things with cooperation. Our salvation is a cooperative event, the start of the Church is done with cooperation of the apostles, the incarnation needed cooperation, etc. Christ gives us the grace to cooperate, and we just have to agree to use it.

For Mary, she is the new Eve, the one that said yes instead of the one that said no. Therefore, she had more graces given to her than Eve had. Her graces must have been such that the angel identified her as “full of grace”. It was to be a Jewish woman that brought Christ into the world and was made our spiritual mother also. Our spiritual mother is an important concept. The identification of her being the same as the Queen mother as in the book of kings is also important which shows her prominence in the kingship of Jesus. She is also important in the sense God allows her to come here for our benefit in the form of apparitions. Jesus listens to his mother as the commandments tell us to.

 

[Steveabrous]

But no one is asking the only question worth asking: what kind of being must Mary necessarily be if she can hear, and forward, and pray with all the millions of prayers she receives? Is Mary a finite, limited human being, or does Catholicism make her ipso facto divine?

Very good question. And it would be relevant if being in heaven was like being in the next room with our fallen bodies. But in heaven with our glorified bodies there is undoubtedly a lot less limitation. I would also like to point out that if Mary was able to hear and intercede with 10 million prayers at once that is still a finite amount and does not make her infinite, nor ipso facto divine. Also if she is able to it is only because of God, and everyone in heaven can.