Roy5 and Stepson, the Church teaches that while praying to the Saints isn’t necessary at all but is encouraged by the Church, devotion to the Blessed Virgin is in a sense obligatory and She is necessary to salvation. Mary is not absolutely necessary but only morally necessary The Church allows mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants (and anyone who is Baptized), and while it isn’t absolutely necessary that you HAVE to marry a Catholic to be validly married it is better to marry one who is already Catholic than one who isn’t.
We have to distinguish devotion to Mary from that of other Saints. God, the Holy Trinity is the highest in heaven. Jesus is the King and the creator of the world while Mary is the Queen. She is the Queen not only because She is the Mother of God (the Queen Mother) but also because God gave Her Queenly power (Queen Reagent) in order for Her to give us grace and make us saints. We all know God the Father is the Father of Jesus both in Spirit and in the flesh, and so is Mary both the Mother of God in spirit and also in the flesh. Protestants bigots say that Mary isn’t the Mother of God because She didn’t give Him His spiritual nature; with this reasoning, then neither is God the Father of Jesus because He certainly didn’t give Him His flesh.
Just as Jesus is the only begotten of the Father in the literal sense and we are His adopted children, so Jesus is the only begotten of Mary in the literal sense and we are Her adopted children. With this interpretation which is true because the Bible said so (with the Church being the bride of Christ and all) God and Mary have children with each other and this is how we believe that Mary gives us grace and virtue. She gets Her power from God and like the most loving of all Mothers She protects us against the wrath of God.There was a phrase from Old testament which I can’t remember where God Himself complains that there is nobody to hold His hand back from punishing sinners.
This does not mean that we can sin all we want and count on Mary to protect us: we’re far from holding the ‘sin and sin more to have more confidence in Christ’ thesis of that degenerate Martin Luther. For if it was true that Mary defended sinners especially when they didn’t want to give up sin then She wouldn’t be showing God respect or love.
However, Mary is not the Mother of only Catholics. We don’t need a Baptism in order to be truly devoted to Mary or some other ritual* and if She were the Mother of only Catholics like God is the Father of only those who are Catholic or those who want to become Catholics, She wouldn’t have so much power to convert all those sinners, all those outside the Church, all those Jews, infidels, Muslims, Freemasons, even Satanists.
*we don’t Baptize in the name of Mary because She isn’t operational in Baptism itself; She isn’t in and of Herself cleansing us from our sins. However, I beleive that since She is the Mediatrix of all grace, She does give the power of the Priesthood to the Priest.
