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Sorry to hi-jack a thread, if that's what this amounts to, but this is an important point I would like to make:

Does everyone see how quickly idolatry descends? Churches which accuse the Catholic Church of idolatry should note:

The Catholic Church was around hundreds of years before it had to start defending itself against accusations of idolatry from Protestants.

In all those hundreds of years, never, not once, ever, has any Catholic used the word, "worship" to describe his relationship with the Blessed Mother of God, who is Mary. NEVER! Never has a Catholic prayer asked the Blessed Mother for forgiveness. NEVER! We ask the Blessed Mother to pray for us that we be kept from sin. It's not that the Church hasn't done these things because they'd make us look bad to Protestants. We do loads of stuff that blow Protestants' minds. FREQUENTLY.

We frequently pray to the Blessed Mother (MARY!) to pray for us that we may not sin.
We NEVER pray to the Blessed Mother to forgive us our sins, even though we ask freinds, the priest, etc. (We ask forgiveness from those we hurt, or priests, who represent the Church. We ask Christ alone for divine forgiveness. We do not ask Mary because we have not sinned against her, and she does not grant the forgiveness that God grants; she can only pray for us, as can saints and our earthly beloved.)

Our prayers say we venerate Mary.
We never adore Mary, or that we worship her.

No Catholic has EVER said that Mary is divine, god, or all-powerful.

I'm not saying the Pope has never approved such things. I'm saying they have never occured, not once, never.

Some Protestants may not recognize the distinctions between these things, but if there were no distinctions, why have some happened so frequently, and others never happened?

Sorry. But I have many RC friends who tell me forthrightly that they do worship Mary in a way with their prayers because they see her as being worthy of worship due to her supposedly sinless nature.

But Mary was human and in need of a Savior, just like the rest of us.

Jesus Christ is the only mediator between men and God. Anything else, and you leave yourself open to charges of idolatry.

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" -- 1 Timothy 2:5

"No Catholic has EVER said that Mary is divine, god, or all-powerful."
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I completely agree with your condemnation of idolatry and introduction of pagan worship into a once great Christian church. I was an Episcopalian before I became a Baptist. The one thing that I will always appreciate was the King James Bible the church I attended gave to me. When I truly began to seek the TRUTH the answers were there and I knew I was not in the right church.

Your statement about Mary not being elevated to an undue status I think is wrong.

How about the phrases "Queen of Heaven", "Co-Redemptress","Mother of GOD".

Aren't there statues depicting Mary in most of your Churches that people bow down to?

Don't you claim in the "immaculate conception" that Mary was born without sin.

I might be wrong , please correct me if I am, do you believe Mary was taken to heaven before she died?

Don't you believe that prayers to her are magnified and given special consideration? If so, doesn't this imply she has special powers?

Never has a Catholic prayer asked the Blessed Mother for forgiveness. NEVER! We ask the Blessed Mother to pray for us that we be kept from sin.

Then why is she named by Rome's bishops (Pius XI in 1935 and JP II in 1985) as the Co-Redemptrix? Though she's never been infallibly declared in this rank, the angry reaction from Catholics and Orthodox and Anglicans, not to mention Protestants and others, was not positive. So we see a soft-pedaling of this silly notion which does not even merit the dignity of being called a doctrine. JP II tested the waters and the reaction was not warm, even among Catholics.

No Catholic has EVER said that Mary is divine, god, or all-powerful.

So, is Mary the Queen Of Heaven or not?

As far as Marian prayers, Wikipedia offers:

The earliest known Marian prayer is Deipara, Dei Genetrix. Mother of God, dating from late 2nd century. It was, discovered in Egypt in 1917 and was written in the languages of the Copts and Greeks (Theotokos, Mother of God). This title was authorized at the Council of Ephesus in 431 commemorating the Virgin's role in the incarnation of Jesus as the Word of God, and her place in the History of Salvation.

Looks to me like a late second-century superstition that gained standing as Rome's state religion descended to its typical accommodations to extent pagan godess religions, a familiar strategy from the hierarchy's other doctrinal compromises with false religions for the sake of recruitment and temporal influence.

BTW, my Catholic neighbor mentioned to me on the phone that she got more rain than me a few nights ago by going out and shaking her rosary beads at the storm clouds. I retorted that this was unfair to us humble Baptists and we might retaliate by buying ourselves some groovy "love beads" so we wouldn't be defenseless when Rome's followers try to hog the rain.

In all those hundreds of years, never, not once, ever, has any Catholic used the word, "worship" to describe his relationship with the Blessed Mother of God, who is Mary. NEVER!.....We never adore Mary, or that we worship her. No Catholic has EVER said that Mary is divine, god, or all-powerful. I'm not saying the Pope has never approved such things. I'm saying they have never occured, not once, never

With all due respect and sincerity, I'd bet that, if given twenty-four uninterrupted hours, I could find at least one Catholic FReeper who has publicly said/done otherwise, in the last year alone.

I know what you're trying to say, and while I still strongly disagree with the practice overall, those distinctions are not lost on me, and I will be mindful of what you've described regarding your own practices. Yours would be the route I'd follow should I ever swim the Tiber. But in mine and others' experiences, not every Catholic is as cautious as you are. Some practice, and even encourage, full-blown idolatry and IMO blasphemy re Mary, while remaining in full communion with Mother Church.

In all those hundreds of years, never, not once, ever, has any Catholic used the word, "worship" to describe his relationship with the Blessed Mother of God, who is Mary

Not quite:

Sophia Institute Press: About Saint Worship and Worship of Mary - Why Devotion to the Saints Makes Sense

Protestants call it idolatry and modernists see it as quaint superstition, but in these lucid pages written over a century ago, Catholic author Orestes Brownson demonstrates that veneration of Mary and the saints is not merely permissible; it’s essential for every Christian who yearns to worship God in spirit and in truth. Worship comes from the Anglo-Saxon word weorthscipe, which means "worthy of honor." And Mary and the saints are worthy of honor more than all other created beings. As Christians praise God in the majesty of the heavens and of the earth, so they praise Him by venerating Him in His saints, who are also the work of His hands and whose good deeds are possible only by His grace. Such praise is not idolatrous because idolatry is the act of rendering to created things the worship that is due to God alone. Catholics do pray to Mary and to the saints, by they don’t invoke them as God; they call on them as humans — humans whose nearness to God in Heaven enables them to assist us here on earth. Catholics simply as of Mary and the saints what they ask of each other while they live in the flesh: prayers. Brownson explains that veneration of Mary and the saints arises from two central mysteries of our Faith — the creation and the Incarnation. And he shows that saint worship is not just a pious devotion that Christians can take or leave as they choose. Rather, it must be part of the faith of every Christian, for it serves as a critical safeguard against atheism, pantheism, and idolatry. Saint Worship and the Worship of Mary challenges every Christian — Catholic and Protestant alike — to take a fresh look at veneration of Mary and the saints, and to discover in these wise and worthy devotions sure means to keep alive in their souls the great mysteries of our Christian Faith.

I think it is more illuminating to observe that we don't offer sacrifice to the Virgin or the other Saints, as we do to God in the Eucharist. Sacrifice is the supreme expression of worship and is fit for God alone.

"No Catholic has EVER said that Mary is divine, god, or all-powerful."

Unfortunately, that is simply not correct. A few years ago I was visiting my Bro-in-law in Santa Barbara, California. On that Saturday morning there was a two page spread in the paper about an organization housed at the mission there, whose basic tenet was that Mary was indeed divine, and was co-redeemer, and they were making as much noise as they could (with the help of the local rag) and petitioning pope John-Paul to make such a declaration.